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Venison, Imitation Of, Potted

A preserved venison made by marinating in claret, seasoning, and clarified butter, then pounded into a smooth paste and stored in jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Venison, Imitation Of, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Rub the bottom of a deep dish with freshly‑cut garlic.

  2. Pour in the claret.

  3. Season the beef with pepper, salt, and mace.

  4. Place the beef in the wine and let it marinate for two days, turning it frequently.

  5. Transfer the beef to a jar with a tight lid and pour the wine over it.

Bake

  1. Cover lightly and place the jar in a shallow tin filled with boiling water.

  2. Bake until tender, adding boiling water to the tin as needed.

Pound and pot

  1. Once cooked, let the beef cool, then pound it to a smooth paste.

  2. Gradually mix in the clarified butter while pounding.

  3. Press the paste into pots and 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mace + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 dish and becomes a tender, spreadable paste when pounded.
Claret
Its wine flavours and acidity infuse the meat during the long marinade.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and moisture to the paste and seals the surface of the pots.
Powdered mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Bake until tender, keeping the tin topped with boiling water. Gentle, moist heat in a water bath cooks the beef slowly without drying it. If the water in the tin runs low, the jar overheats and the meat toughens and loses moisture, so it will not pound into a smooth paste.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter. 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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