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Pressed Meat

Pressed meat is 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

  1. Mix all the ingredients together.

  2. Press the mixture into a square mold.

  3. Place in a cold area to cool.

  4. Once cold, turn it out of the mold. Cut into slices and serve.

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

Cooked meat
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives it its body and savoury flavour.
Boiling stock
Adds moisture and helps bind the meat so it holds together when pressed and chilled.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour to the meat.
Cloves
Adds strong, warm aromatic flavour that carries through the chilled mixture.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the mold. Pressing removes air pockets and packs the meat and stock together, so the set loaf holds its shape and slices cleanly. Chilling then lets the gelatin from the stock firm the mixture.

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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