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Compote of Cold Meat

A compote made by simmering chopped meat with butter, eggs, bread, and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Compote of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Start the meat

  1. Chop the meat and place it in a saucepan with any gravy or cover it with water, then add butter.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add well-beaten eggs, bread, and salt, then bring to a boil.

  2. If desired, chop and cook celery with the meat.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  4. Bread + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,110 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main protein and bulk of the dish.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the mixture together and giving it body.
Bread
Soaks up liquid and adds body, helping the mixture thicken.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs and bringing to a boil. Eggs can curdle or turn grainy if they cook too fast or sit still in very hot liquid. Adding them while stirring, then bringing the mixture to a boil, helps the proteins set evenly so the compote stays smooth and holds together.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, bread, butter. 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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