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Devilled Meat

A savory dish of sliced cold meat topped with a mustard, vinegar, and gravy mixture baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Devilled Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix mustard with vinegar in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add oil, butter, curry powder, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, and lemon juice, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Pour in the gravy and stir well.

Bake and serve

  1. Cut slices of underdone meat and place them in a pie dish.

  2. Pour the mixture over the meat, cover with a plate, and bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Serve with mashed potatoes.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mustard + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together855 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the curry flavor and keeps the sauce smooth.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and a savory base that keeps the meat from drying out.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the rich fat.
Mustard
Adds sharp pungency and helps hold the oil and butter together in the sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the main aroma and warm spiced flavor of the dish.
Worcestershire sauce
Contributes savory depth and a salty, tangy background flavor.

The step that matters

Gradually add oil, butter, curry powder, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, and lemon juice, mixing thoroughly.. Adding fat slowly while mixing thoroughly lets it disperse into the acidic liquids as a uniform emulsion instead of separating into greasy pools.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, sauce, vinegar, butter, meat):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, sauce, vinegar, butter, 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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