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Pressed Veal or Chicken

A pressed meat dish made from stewed veal or chicken, butter, spices, and egg, served in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pressed Veal or Chicken

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Place the veal or chickens in a pot.

  2. Cover the pot with water.

  3. Stew slowly until the meat falls from the bones.

  4. Remove the meat from the pot.

  5. Chop the meat.

  6. Boil the cooking liquid down to 1 cup.

Mix and press

  1. Add butter, pepper, allspice, and the beaten egg to the meat.

  2. Mix the mixture well.

  3. Slice the hard-boiled egg.

  4. Layer the sliced egg in a mold.

  5. Press the meat mixture into the mold.

  6. Garnish with celery tops or parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal or chickens
Supplies the meat that becomes the body of the dish and sets firm as it cools.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the chopped meat moist and tender.
Beaten egg
Binds the chopped meat together so it holds its shape when pressed.
Hard-boiled egg
Forms a visible layer in the mold, giving the sliced pressed loaf contrast in appearance.

The step that matters

Pressing the meat mixture into the mold. Meat set by cooling and gelatin from the bones firms into a loaf only when it is packed firmly and evenly, so air pockets and loose packing can make it crumble when sliced.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, egg, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, egg, celery. 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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