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Minced Beef with Savoury Jelly

A chilled minced beef mixture set in aspic jelly, garnished with olives and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cabbage and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,081 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Beef with Savoury Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cold beef with a small amount of red pickled cabbage or beetroot.

  2. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, black pepper, olive oil, and vinegar.

  3. Chop the hard-boiled egg white and add it to the mixture.

  4. Moisten the mixture with a small amount of liquid aspic jelly.

Mould and serve

  1. Fill small dariole moulds with the mixture.

  2. Once set, turn the moulds out onto a dish.

  3. Garnish with stuffed olives, rings of hard-boiled eggs, and slices of aspic jelly, then serve.

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. Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef
Forms the main body of the filling, giving the moulds their substance and meaty texture.
Liquid aspic jelly
Moistens the mixture and sets it firm, holding the moulds together when turned out.
Hard-boiled egg white
Adds a mild, firm texture to the filling as chopped pieces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and cuts the richness of the beef.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with a small amount of liquid aspic jelly. Gelatine in the aspic is what makes the filling set. Too much liquid stops it firming, and too little leaves the moulds crumbly and likely to break when turned out.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, olive, vinegar, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, olive, vinegar, 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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