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Pressed Meat

A dish made by mixing cooked meat with spices and stock, pressing into a mold, cooling, and slicing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pressed Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Press and chill

  1. Mix all the ingredients together.

  2. Press the mixture into a square mold.

  3. Place in a cold area to cool.

Unmold and serve

  1. Once cold, turn it out of the mold and cut into slices.

  2. Serve as desired.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 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

Cold cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its body and texture.
Boiling stock
Adds moisture, and its natural gelatin helps the mixture hold together when chilled.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavor to the meat.
Cinnamon
Adds sweet, woody aroma that rounds out the spiced flavor.

The step that matters

Chill until fully cold before unmolding. The pressed mixture only holds its shape once it is thoroughly cold and set. Turning it out early can cause it to crumble or slump, so the cooling step needs to be complete.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, allspice, clove, pepper, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, allspice, clove, pepper, cinnamon. 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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