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Pressed Veal or Chicken

A dish of stewed veal or chicken pressed into a mold, flavored with butter, pepper, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Prepare the meat

  1. Place the veal or chickens in a pot and cover with water.

  2. Stew slowly until the meat falls off the bone.

  3. Remove the meat and chop it finely.

  4. Reduce the cooking liquid until you have 1 cup.

Assemble and serve

  1. Mix the butter, pepper, and beaten egg into the chopped meat.

  2. Layer the mixture in a mold and press it down.

  3. Garnish with sliced hard-boiled egg and 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 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

Veal or chicken
Provides the meat that sets into a firm, sliceable mass as the cooking liquid cools.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the chopped meat hold together with a softer texture.
Egg
Binds the chopped meat so the pressed mixture holds its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Reduce the cooking liquid. The gelatin released from bones and connective tissue sets the mixture when chilled. Reducing the liquid to the stated cup concentrates that gelatin, so too much liquid can leave the pressed dish loose.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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