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Sect. 5.-Potted Meats and Sandwiches To Pot Meats
620. Take any tender and well-done meat, free from fat, bone, skin, and gristle. Pound it thoroughly in a mortar till it is reduced to a paste, putting in a part at a time. When all is thoroughly reduced, add the spice and some butter, according to the nature of the meat; ham requiring less than veal, and veal again less than beef. After mixing them together in the most thorough manner, press the
A general method rather than a fixed recipe: the quantities are left to the cook's judgement, and the meat must be fully cooked and cold before it goes into the mortar.
- The hinge: dry the meat, not the pasteEverything depends on starting with meat that is cooked through and trimmed hard of fat, gristle, skin and sinew. Any connective tissue left in will show up as threads that no amount of pounding will break down, and fat left in turns the potted meat greasy rather than rich.
- Mortar or processorA food processor does in two minutes what the mortar did in twenty, but pulse rather than run it continuously, and still add the meat in batches as directed. Overworking warm meat in a machine emulsifies the butter and gives a pasty, gluey texture instead of a short one.
- Butter proportionsThe rule given -- ham needs least, veal more, beef most -- is the recipe's own, and the amounts are left to the cook. As a modern starting point, try roughly 4 oz softened butter to 1 lb cooked meat for beef and rather less for ham, then adjust by taste and feel; the paste should just hold together when pressed.
- "The spice"Left unspecified. Seasonings commonly found in period potted-meat recipes include mace, ground cloves, black or cayenne pepper and salt, with nutmeg often used for veal. About a teaspoon of total spice per pound is a reasonable modern starting point; season the mixture cold, since chilling mutes salt and pepper.
- SealingPress the paste into small pots with no air pockets, level the top, and cover with a quarter-inch of clarified butter poured on warm and left to set. The butter is what kept the old potted meats; unclarified butter contains water and milk solids and will not give a sound seal.
- Storage, then and nowA butter seal in a cold larder was treated as good for weeks. Treat this as a refrigerator preparation only: keep it at 40F or below, eat within four or five days, and once the butter seal is broken finish the pot promptly.
- Yield and servingA pound of cooked meat makes roughly two cups of paste, enough for a dozen sandwiches or eight to ten servings on toast. Let it stand at room temperature fifteen minutes before spreading.
Potting is an English preserving method of long standing: cooked meat reduced to a paste, packed tight to exclude air, and sealed under fat. It predates canning and survived alongside it because it needed no special equipment, only a mortar and a cool place. Its appearance here beside sandwiches is telling -- by the mid-nineteenth century potted ham, beef and tongue were as much a convenience as a preserving method, a common filling for picnics and teas, and commercial potted meats and pastes sold in jars were among the early branded prepared foods in British grocery.