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Italian Cheese

A veal jelly seasoned with nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and pepper, chilled in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Italian Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal until fully cooked.

  2. Strain the liquid and remove the fat.

  3. Take out the bones and chop the meat finely.

Make the jelly

  1. Add nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and pepper to the meat.

  2. Simmer the mixture gently until the liquid becomes jelly.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate overnight.

  2. Optionally, line the mold with slices of hard-boiled egg.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides the meat and natural gelatin that lets the liquid set into a jelly.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic flavour to the meat and jelly.
Cloves
Contributes a strong, pungent spiced aroma.
Allspice
Adds a blended warm spice flavour to the jelly.
Pepper
Adds mild heat and sharpness to the seasoned meat.

The step that matters

Simmering until the liquid becomes jelly. Gentle simmering lets collagen and gelatin from the veal dissolve without boiling hard, which can cloud the liquid. Enough reduction and gelatin are needed so the mixture sets firmly when chilled.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, allspice, 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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