Name: Minced Ham and Veal Loaf
Ingredients: 2300 lbs dry-cured beef head meat; 500 lbs dry-cured pork cheek meat; 400 lbs dry-cured No. 1 lean pork trimmings; 5 lbs water for each 100 lbs of meat

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Minced Ham and Veal Loaf

Ingredients

2300 lbs dry-cured beef head meat
500 lbs dry-cured pork cheek meat
400 lbs dry-cured No. 1 lean pork trimmings
5 lbs water for each 100 lbs of meat

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 160°F (70°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Grind the beef head meat through a 7/64-inch plate in the grinder.
Chop the ground beef fine, adding 5 lbs of water for every 100 lbs of meat.
Grind the pork cheek meat through a 1-inch plate.
Use the pork trimmings whole.
Cook the mixture for 3 to 4 hours at 160°F (70°C).

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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,208 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,533 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).