Name: Excellent Meat Rolls
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; ½ pound half-roasted veal, chicken, or turkey; Forcemeat (see recipe No. 1, Chapter VI); Oysters and their sauce; Fried crumbs (optional for variation); Puff pastry; Water (for moistening)

Why it works: Butter and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,184 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Excellent Meat Rolls

Ingredients

½ cup butter
½ pound half-roasted veal, chicken, or turkey
Forcemeat (see recipe No. 1, Chapter VI)
Oysters and their sauce
Fried crumbs (optional for variation)
Puff pastry
Water (for moistening)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Pound the half-roasted meat as for potting and mix with butter and seasonings.
Prepare the forcemeat according to the recipe in Chapter VI.

Shape and fill

Form small patties with a thin crust, filling them with oysters and sauce.
For the rolls, cut puff pastry into small pieces, no larger than a finger.
Wrap each piece of pastry with pounded meat, moistening with a teaspoon of water.
Fold the pastry around the meat and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes until the crust is golden.

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.

Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,184 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Veal + oystertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together988 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce 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: Enriches the pounded meat, adding richness and a softer, moister texture.
Puff pastry: Forms a flaky, layered crust that puffs and browns in the oven.
Oysters: Provide the briny, savoury filling centre of the patties.

“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.