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To Pot Beef

A pickled, mashed, and baked beef dish served in pots with clarified butter topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Pot Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Cut the beef into slices and lay them on a plate.

  2. Season both sides with coarse sea salt, saltpetre, and cochineal.

  3. Let the beef sit overnight, stacked on top of each other.

Cook and pot

  1. Place the beef in a pan and add small beer, vinegar, and enough water to cover it.

  2. Add black pepper and Jamaica pepper, then cover tightly and bake.

  3. Once done, remove the slices from the pickle while hot.

  4. When cooled, beat the slices in a mortar, adding fresh butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg until smooth.

  5. Press the mixture into pots and place in the oven after the bread is done to heat through.

  6. Once cooled, top with clarified butter.

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. Beer + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Beef + beertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow cooking and then pounding into a spreadable mass.
Saltpetre
Helps the beef keep its pink colour and adds a cured flavour during the salting stage.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pounded beef a smooth, spreadable texture.
Clarified butter
Forms a sealed topping that protects the potted beef from air and keeps it moist.

The step that matters

Removing the slices from the pickle while hot. Beef left to cool in its cooking liquid can toughen or dry out, and pounding it while warm helps it blend smoothly with the butter.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, beer, 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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