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To Make a Pasty of Beef or Mutton

A pastry-wrapped beef or mutton filling marinated in port wine and vinegar, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Make a Pasty of Beef or Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Bone a small rump or piece of sirloin of beef, or a fat loin of mutton.

  2. Beat the meat well with a rolling pin.

  3. Rub the meat with sugar and pour over port wine and vinegar.

  4. Let it marinate for five days and nights.

  5. Wash and dry the meat, then season it with pepper, Jamaica pepper, nutmeg, and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the meat in a dish and spread butter over it.

  2. Cover with a pastry crust, ensuring it's thick to prevent overcooking.

  3. Bake in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C).

Make the gravy

  1. Set bones in a pan with just enough water to cover, add port wine, pepper, and salt for gravy.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Beef + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together626 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or mutton
Provides the main meat, which the marinade and slow baking tenderize.
Sugar
Sweetens the meat and adds a little balance to the sharp marinade.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the marinade and the gravy.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps soften the meat's fibres.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the meat moist during baking.
Pastry crust
Encloses the meat so it bakes in its own juices and stays moist.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven under a thick crust. A low, gentle oven lets the meat cook through and tenderize without drying out, and a thick crust shields it from overcooking. Too high a heat toughens the meat and dries the juices the crust is meant to hold.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, port wine, vinegar, 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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