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Rolled Beef in Jelly

Cold roast beef rolled with ham or bacon, simmered in stock and set in gelatin, served cold with pickled vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and cauliflower work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and 113 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-ethylphenol, which smells must. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the beef

  1. Spread potted ham or cold boiled bacon on thin slices of cold roast beef and roll them up, tying with twine.

  2. Grease a stewpan with beef dripping.

  3. Add sliced onion, carrot, turnip, and the beef rolls.

  4. Cover with greased paper.

  5. Fry for six minutes.

  6. Pour in a small amount of stock.

  7. Cook gently for one hour.

  8. Remove the beef rolls.

  9. Place them on soft paper to cool.

  10. Take off the twine.

Make the aspic

  1. In a saucepan, combine a small onion, cold water, cloves, lemon peel, salt, and pepper.

  2. Simmer for half an hour.

  3. Add gravy, tarragon vinegar, and gelatine.

  4. Stir until melted.

  5. Strain into a basin.

Set and serve

  1. Pour a small amount of jelly into a round mould.

  2. Let it firm up.

  3. Arrange pickled vegetables on the jelly.

  4. Fill the mould with the rolled beef.

  5. Wait until the jelly starts to set.

  6. Pour it over the meat.

  7. The next day, turn the jelly onto a dish.

  8. Garnish with fresh parsley.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + cauliflowertop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together113 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together27,039 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cauliflowertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together286 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,091 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Forms the main meat body of the dish, rolled around a filling.
Gelatine
Sets the cooled stock into a firm, sliceable jelly that holds the meat in shape.
Beef dripping
Fat used to grease the stewpan, helping the rolls brown and keeping them from sticking.
Potted ham or cold boiled bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the filling inside the beef rolls.
Pickled cauliflower
Adds sharp acidity and crunch that contrasts with the soft meat and jelly.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the savoury jelly.

The step that matters

Pour the jelly only when it is just starting to set. If the aspic is too warm, it melts the set layer and the meat floats or the layers blur; if it is too cold, it sets lumpy and does not coat evenly. Gelatine sets as it cools, so timing controls the clean, even layer.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, onion, carrot, turnip, clove, pepper):

  1. Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Appleabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, onion, carrot, turnip, clove, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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