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Potted Meat

A preserved meat mixture made by stewing, pounding, and seasoning, then packed in pots with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Potted Meat

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the meat

  1. Stew the meat with chopped suet and water in a 400°F (200°C) oven until tender.

  2. Drain the fat and gravy from the meat.

Make the potted meat

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar until smooth.

  2. Add Cayenne, white pepper, salt, mace, and clear gravy.

  3. Add melted butter gradually while beating.

  4. Transfer the mixture to pots.

  5. Cover the pots with melted 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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the bulk of the dish and, once pounded, gives the spread its body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the spread a smooth, silky texture and a rich mouthfeel.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the meat moist and tender during slow stewing.
Clear gravy
Adds savory meaty flavor and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Adding the melted butter gradually while beating. Butter must be incorporated slowly so it emulsifies into the pounded meat. Adding it all at once can cause it to separate, leaving the spread greasy and grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, mace, 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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