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Potted Beef

A dish of boiled lean beef, chopped and seasoned, served with gravy and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potted Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Procure a nice piece of lean beef, free from gristle and skin.

  2. Place the beef in a jar with a lid, add 1 teaspoon of water, and cover the jar tightly.

Cook

  1. Place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water, ensuring the water comes within 2 inches of the top of the jar.

  2. Boil gently for 3.5 hours.

Make the paste

  1. Remove the beef from the jar.

  2. Chop the beef very small.

  3. Pound the chopped beef thoroughly in a mortar.

  4. Gradually mix in the gravy that has run from the beef and a little clarified butter.

  5. Add salt, cayenne, mace, and black pepper to taste.

Pot and store

  1. Transfer the mixture to small pots.

  2. Cover the pots with warmed butter.

  3. If more gravy is added, it will keep for a short time; if more butter is used, it can be preserved longer.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

Lean beef
Forms the bulk of the dish and, once cooked and pounded, gives the paste its body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and a layer of butter on top helps preserve the potted beef.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3.5 hours. Gentle heat cooks the beef slowly and evenly through the sealed jar, keeping it tender and moist. Vigorous boiling can toughen meat and push liquid out, and the water level must stay near the jar's top to keep heat even.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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