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Hot Pot

A casserole of veal, calf brains, oysters, and oyster crackers baked with butter, onions, parsley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Hot Pot

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into squares and parboil for 20 minutes.

Layer the dish

  1. Layer some veal in a buttered baking dish and season well.

  2. Sprinkle a little minced onion on top, then add a layer of split crackers.

  3. Beat the brains with a raw egg and season, then drop spoonfuls onto the crackers.

  4. Add a few oysters, seasoned with pepper, salt, and bits of butter.

  5. Continue layering with more veal and finish with a layer of crackers.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the dish with the water used to boil the veal and an equal amount of oyster liquor.

  2. Cover tightly and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve directly from the dish without uncovering.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Veal
Provides the meat body, which becomes tender during the long covered baking.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour that concentrates into the liquid as the dish bakes.
Calf's brains
Beaten with egg, they enrich the filling and help bind it to the crackers.
Raw egg (in the method)
Binds the beaten brains so the spoonfuls hold together in the layers.
Oyster crackers
Soak up the cooking liquid and give the layers a soft, absorbent body.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and bake. A tight cover traps steam so the veal cooks gently in liquid and the crackers soften rather than dry out. Lifting the cover early lets moisture escape and leaves the top dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, oyster, pepper, butter, parsley, lemon. 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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