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Peessed Meat

A dish of boiled, finely chopped meat packed while warm, pressed, and served sliced when cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Peessed Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the meat until perfectly tender.

  2. Remove the bones and gristle.

  3. Chop the meat finely.

  4. Add salt, pepper, and butter if the meat is very lean.

Press and set

  1. Pack the mixture solidly while warm.

  2. Slice when cold.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton, beef, or veal
Supplies the main body, and its connective tissue turns to gelatin that helps the mixture set firm.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to very lean meat, keeping the pressed mixture moist and tender.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture solidly while warm. Packing while the meat is still warm lets the loosened gelatin bind the pieces together. As it cools, the gelatin sets and holds the block firm, so it can be sliced cleanly. If it is packed cold, the pieces can separate and the slices may crumble.

“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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