Name: Potted Beef
Ingredients: 7 lbs Australian beef; ½ lb ground rice; to taste powdered cayenne; to taste powdered mace

Why it works: Beef and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,265 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

7 lbs Australian beef
½ lb ground rice
to taste powdered cayenne
to taste powdered mace

Directions

Mix all ingredients roughly.
Pass the mixture through a mincing machine.
Beat the mixture in a mortar.
Transfer to a pot.

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.

Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Rice + macetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together932 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Beef + macetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,969 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).