Name: Fricassee of Cold Boiled Meat
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 cups white stock or milk; 1 clove of mace or 1 laurel leaf; a few button mushrooms; cold boiled meat; lemon for serving

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fricassee of Cold Boiled Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make a roux.
Gradually add the white stock or milk, stirring until smooth.
Add the mace or laurel leaf and mushrooms, and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

Cut the cold boiled meat into small square pieces, not over ½ inch thick.
Remove the sauce from heat and stir in the meat.
Serve with cut lemon around the dish.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,663 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,231 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce by forming a roux.
Butter: Enriches the sauce and carries the flour to form the roux.
White stock or milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it body and savoury flavour.
Button mushrooms: Add earthy flavour and a tender texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the stock gradually to the roux. Pouring liquid in slowly while stirring lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce becomes smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk, clove, mushroom, meat):

Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk, clove, mushroom, meat. 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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Mushroom Soup60 recipes

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Meatballs37 recipes

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Fricassee of Cold Boiled Meat