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Potted Beef

Potted beef is a preserved beef dish cooked with butter, anchovies, and seasonings, then molded and covered with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,697 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Pass the meat through a mincing machine.

  2. Put the minced meat into a jar with half the butter.

  3. Cover the jar closely.

Cook

  1. Cook in an oven or a pan of boiling water for 1 hour.

  2. Add the seasonings.

  3. Cook slowly for another hour.

Pound, sieve and pot

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar with the anchovies.

  2. Pass the meat through a wire sieve.

  3. Reheat the meat.

  4. Add the remaining butter.

  5. Season if necessary.

  6. Press into small molds while hot.

  7. Cover with clarified 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. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. 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

Rump steak
Provides the bulk of the meat, which becomes the main body of the potted dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the potted meat set smoothly when cooled.
Anchovies
Adds savory depth and salty umami that rounds out the beef flavor.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for another hour. Long, gentle heat breaks down the meat's connective tissue so it becomes tender rather than tough. Overheating can dry the meat and make it grainy.

“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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