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To Make a Pasty of Beef or Mutton

A savory pastry filled with marinated beef or mutton, sugar, port wine, vinegar, butter, and spices, baked until crusty.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Marinate

  1. Rub the meat with sugar, pour over port and vinegar, and let marinate for five days.

Prepare and bake

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

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

  3. Cover the edges with a crust and top with a thick crust to prevent overcooking.

  4. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

Make the gravy

  1. Place the bones in a pan with just enough water to cover them and add a glass of port, pepper, and salt to create 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 becomes tender during the long marinating and slow baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps tenderise the meat during marinating.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and aroma to the meat and the gravy.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the meat rich and juicy as it bakes.

The step that matters

Covering with a thick crust. The thick crust insulates the meat so it cooks gently in the slow oven and does not dry out or overcook. Sealing the edges keeps the juices inside.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  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, butter, 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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