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Potted Dripping for Frying Fish, Pleat, Fritters

A fat made by boiling beef dripping with spices, strained and cooled for frying fish and fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Potted Dripping for Frying Fish, Pleat, Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the dripping

  1. Boil the beef dripping in soft water.

  2. Strain the mixture into a pan.

  3. Let it stand until cold.

  4. Remove the hard fat and scrape off the gravy from the inside.

  5. Repeat this process five or six times.

  6. Once cold and hard, remove the fat from the water.

Season and pot

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the fat with bay leaves, cloves, salt, and whole pepper.

  2. Melt the fat completely.

  3. Let it cool slightly.

  4. Strain it through a sieve into a pot.

  5. Allow it to cool completely.

  6. Cover it.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef dripping
Forms the solid fat that sets firm and seals the potted contents.
Bay leaves
Adds a subtle herbal aroma to the melted fat.
Cloves
Adds a warm, spicy aroma that infuses the fat.
Whole pepper
Adds a mild peppery aroma and gentle heat to the fat.

The step that matters

Remove all water and gravy before potting. Leftover water and meat residue can spoil the fat, because they encourage bacteria and rancidity. Repeating the boiling and chilling draws out more of both, so the fat keeps longer.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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