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Beef, Potted

A slow‑cooked beef dish preserved in butter and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces and place them in a jar with water.

  2. Sprinkle the cloves, mace, allspice, and a little salt and pepper on top.

  3. Cover the jar with a close-fitting lid and add 3 or 4 layers of buttered paper.

  4. Place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water or in the oven in a baking tin with boiling water.

  5. Replace the water as it reduces.

  6. Cook gently for about 3 hours.

Pound and press

  1. Pound the mixture well in a mortar.

  2. Add the gravy yielded by the meat and a few drops of anchovy essence gradually.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Rub the mixture through a fine wire sieve.

  5. Press the mixture into pots.

  6. 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the potted mixture and yields the gravy used later.
Butter
Clarified butter sealed over the top adds richness and protects the pots from air.
Anchovy essence
Adds a savoury depth to the mixture when added gradually with the gravy.

The step that matters

Replace the water as it reduces. Slow gentle cooking in a water bath keeps the beef moist and tender; if the water boils dry, the jar overheats and the meat can toughen and dry out.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, anchovy, allspice, clove, 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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