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To Pot Beef in Imitation of Venison

A beef pot roast marinated in wine, seasoned, baked, then pounded into a paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

To Pot Beef in Imitation of Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Marinate

  1. Place the beef in a deep dish and pour the red wine over it.

  2. Let it marinate for 2 days, seasoning well with mace, pepper, salt, and garlic.

Cook

  1. Transfer the beef and wine to a closely covered pot.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 3 hours.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, pound the mixture to a paste and pot it as described above.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Red wine + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main protein, which firms up and becomes tender during slow baking.
Red wine
Its acidity helps tenderize the meat during marinating and adds depth of flavour.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency that carries through the long marinade and bake.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Oreganofits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, red wine, pepper, clove, garlic. 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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