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Italian Cheese

A spiced veal cheese made by simmering veal knuckle with nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and pepper until it sets in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Italian Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal until perfectly cooked.

  2. Strain the liquid and remove the fat.

  3. Take out the bones and chop the meat finely.

Make the jelly

  1. Add the grated nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and pepper to the meat.

  2. Simmer the mixture gently until the liquid becomes jelly.

Set and serve

  1. Optionally, line the mould with slices of hard boiled eggs before pouring in the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mould and let it set until the next day.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Provides the meat and natural gelatin that turns the cooked liquid into a firm jelly.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat and jelly.
Allspice
Adds a warm, peppery aroma that rounds out the spiced flavour.
Grated nutmeg
Adds a sweet, warm aroma that complements the meat and spices.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture gently until the liquid becomes jelly. Veal knuckle releases gelatin from collagen as it cooks slowly. Vigorous boiling can cloud the liquid and break the jelly's texture, so a gentle simmer gives a clear, firm set once chilled.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, 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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