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Cold Lunch for 300

A large cold lunch featuring salted beef, hams, fowls, celery, cabbage, tarts, butter, cake, ice cream, fruit, coffee, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and cabbage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,840 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Lunch for 300

serves 300

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats and bread

  1. Boil the salted round of beef, then press it while cooling.

  2. Prepare 48 loaves of bread.

  3. Cook the hams and slice them for serving.

  4. Make ham sandwiches using the cooked hams.

Make the salad and tarts

  1. Prepare a salad with the fowls, celery, and cabbage.

  2. Make 300 tarts filled with apple jam.

Set the table and serve

  1. Set 10 pounds of butter on the table.

  2. Place 20 pounds of cake on the table.

  3. Serve 6 gallons of ice cream.

  4. Arrange apples and oranges on the table.

  5. Brew 15 gallons of coffee.

  6. Set about 12 pounds of sugar on the table.

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. Celery + cabbagetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,840 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Celery + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted round of beef
Pressing while it cools gives the cooked meat a firm, even texture for slicing.
Hams
Cooked and sliced, they provide the main savoury filling for the sandwiches.
Fowls
Cooked into the salad, they supply the protein and body of the dish.
Bakers' loaves of bread
Provide the base for the ham sandwiches and carry the cold meats.
Apple jam
Fills the tarts, adding sweetness and fruity flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the coffee and other items served at the table.

The step that matters

Boil the salted round of beef, then press it while cooling. Boiling a large cut of salted beef too hard toughens the meat, while pressing as it cools compresses the fibres so the slices hold together cleanly.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, ham, celery, apple, butter, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, ham, celery, apple, butter, cream. 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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