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To Make a Pady of Beef or Mutton, to Eat As Well As Venison

A preserved meat pâté made from beef or mutton, sweetened with sugar, flavored with port wine and vinegar, and baked with butter.

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 Pady of Beef or Mutton, to Eat As Well As Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Bone a small rump or piece of sirloin of beef or a fat loin of mutton after hanging several days.

  2. Beat the meat well with a rolling pin.

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

  4. Let it sit for five days and nights.

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

Bake the pâté

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

  2. Cover with a crust around the edges and a thick one on top.

  3. Bake in a slow oven.

Make the gravy

  1. Set the bones in a pan with enough water to cover them and add port, 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
Forms the main body of the pâté, giving it its meaty texture and flavor.
Sugar
Rubbed into the meat to add sweetness and balance the sharp vinegar and port.
Port wine
Marinades the meat, adding depth and aroma to the pâté.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade that helps tenderize and flavor the meat.
Butter
Spread over the meat to add richness and moisture during baking.

The step that matters

Let it sit for five days and nights. The sugar, port and vinegar need the full resting period to penetrate the meat, tenderizing it and developing flavor. Shortening this time leaves the meat less seasoned and less tender.

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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