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To Dress Cold Meat

A sauce made by simmering cold meat with butter, flour, herbs, and gravy, finished with a vinegar‑egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Dress Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut cold meat into thin slices.

  2. In a saucepan, combine meat, butter, flour, sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and gravy.

  3. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Transfer the meat to a dish.

  2. In a small bowl, beat egg yolks with vinegar.

  3. Heat the mixture over low heat.

  4. Pour the heated mixture over the meat.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich egg and butter sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the egg yolk mixture over low heat. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Gentle heat lets them thicken the sauce smoothly, so keep the heat low and stir.

“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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