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Potted Meat

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potted Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove skin and gristle from the cooked meats.

  2. Grind the meat and pound it to a paste.

  3. Season the paste with made mustard, coarse sea salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Moisten with melted butter, using fat for ham.

  5. Pack the seasoned paste into jelly glasses, pressing it down firmly.

  6. Place the glasses in a steamer, cover closely, and cook for 40 minutes.

  7. Press the cooked paste down again and cover with melted butter to seal.

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. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Mustard + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter, ham. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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