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Potted Beef, Game, or Poultry

A preserved meat made by salting, baking, and pounding into a smooth paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Beef, Game, or Poultry

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Cure the beef

  1. Salt the beef with coarse sea salt and saltpetre for 12 hours.

  2. Divide the beef into pound pieces and place in an earthen pan.

  3. Pour in ½ pint of water.

  4. Cover the pan tightly with paste.

Bake and reserve the gravy

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 4 hours.

  2. After baking, pour the gravy into a basin.

Make the potted meat

  1. Shred the meat finely.

  2. Moisten the shredded meat with the gravy.

  3. Pound the meat in a marble mortar with fresh butter until smooth.

  4. Season with black pepper and allspice, cloves, or nutmeg.

  5. Pack the mixture into pots.

  6. Press the mixture down firmly.

  7. Place a weight on top.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  4. Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 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
Forms the bulk of the potted meat, giving its savoury body and texture once shredded and pounded.
Coarse sea salt
Cures the beef, drawing out moisture and seasoning the meat throughout.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it the characteristic pink colour of cured beef.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, making the pounded meat smooth and spreadable.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly with paste. A tight seal keeps moisture and heat inside during the long slow bake, so the beef cooks gently in its own juices rather than drying out.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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