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Preserve

Beef, Potted

A mixture of beef, butter, and spices, optionally with veal or mutton, pounded and stored in pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper 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 ↓

Beef, Potted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using very lean beef, use plenty of butter.

  2. For fat beef, mix equal parts of fat and lean with 2 ounces of butter.

  3. Add cooked veal or mutton for improved flavor.

Make and pot

  1. Pound the beef with butter and season with cayenne, nutmeg, and black pepper.

  2. If using boiled beef, add salt and a dash of anchovy.

  3. Pack the mixture into pots and store.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 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. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the body of the potted mixture and carries the flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pounded meat a smooth, spreadable texture.
Cooked veal or mutton
Optional addition that adds meaty flavor to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pounding the beef with butter. Pounding breaks the meat into fine fibers and works the butter through it evenly. Thorough pounding produces a smooth, spreadable texture rather than a coarse, dry one.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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