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Potted Beef

Potted Beef is a dish of beef simmered with spices and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces, removing all fat and gristle.

  2. Place the beef in a jar with the allspice, clove, peppercorns, bay leaf, and salt.

  3. Cover with greased paper.

  4. Bake or steam for 2 hours at 300°F (150°C).

Make the paste

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Mince the beef finely.

  3. Mix in 1 oz of butter and cayenne pepper.

  4. Pound the mixture into a paste.

Pot and top

  1. Transfer the paste into pots.

  2. Melt the remaining 2 oz of butter.

  3. Pour the melted butter over the beef in a thin layer.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein that cooks down into a rich, tender paste.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and a thin layer seals the potted beef from air.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture into a paste. Mincing and pounding break the cooked meat into fine fibres while the butter is worked in, giving a smooth, spreadable texture rather than a dry, stringy one.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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