Skip to main content
Main

Devilled Meats

Thin slices of cold meat marinated in claret, lemon juice, oil, chili vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, mustard, peppercorns, salt, cayenne, and butter, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Devilled Meats

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the cold meat slices in a deep dish.

Make and add the sauce

  1. In a bowl, mix claret, lemon juice, oil, chili vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, mustard, peppercorns, salt, and cayenne.

  2. Pour the mixture over the meat.

  3. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes and 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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Claret
Provides liquid and acidity that moistens the meat and carries the seasonings.
Butter
Adds fat that melts over the top, enriching the sauce and encouraging browning.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the meat.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth and a sharp seasoning note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Dot the top with small pieces of butter. Butter melts and spreads over the surface, adding fat that helps the top brown and keeps the meat from drying as it bakes. Skipping it or using large chunks leaves uneven coverage.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, vinegar, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, mustard, butter. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes