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To Pot Beef

A beef dish cured with saltpetre, salt, and pepper, baked, then beaten with butter and gravy, and served in small pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pot Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cure the beef

  1. Rub the beef with saltpetre and let it sit overnight.

  2. Salt the beef with common salt and cover it with water for 4 days in a small pan.

  3. Dry the beef with a cloth and season with black pepper.

Bake and pot

  1. Place the beef in a small pan, cover with coarse paste, and bake for 5 hours at 300°F (150°C).

  2. When cold, remove strings and fat, then beat the meat with warm butter and enough gravy to form a paste.

  3. Pack into small pots and cover with melted butter.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat that becomes the dense, tender paste once cooked and beaten.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat and helps it keep its pink colour during long storage.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the salting period.
Fine butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture when beaten into the cooked meat.
Black pepper
Adds aroma and gentle heat to the seasoned meat.

The step that matters

Baking the beef under a coarse paste. The long, low bake at 300°F cooks the meat gently until it is very tender. The sealed paste traps moisture so the beef does not dry out before it is beaten into a paste.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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