Name: To Pot Meat
Ingredients: Gravy from beef; 1 anchovy or part of one, prepared; ¼ weight of the meat in clarified beef suet or butter; Salt to taste

Why it works: Beef and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

To Pot Meat

Ingredients

Gravy from beef
1 anchovy or part of one, prepared
¼ weight of the meat in clarified beef suet or butter
Salt to taste

Directions

Draw the gravy from the beef as directed for Extract of Beef.
Pound the meat to a fine paste and place it in a large jar.
Add the prepared anchovy and the clarified suet or butter.
Season to taste.
Place the jar in a saucepan with a little water and heat until warm.
Stir until cold, then press into pots and cover with clarified suet.

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.

Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Anchovy + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together335 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Beef + anchovytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together451 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).