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On Dressing Meats

Method for preparing meats by washing, seasoning with flour, and cooking by boiling or roasting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,529 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

On Dressing Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash all meats before dressing.

  2. Soak the meat if boiling.

  3. Dry the meat if roasting.

  4. Flour the meat well before placing it in cold water.

Boil

  1. Boil the meat slowly to avoid toughness.

  2. Skim the pot as soon as it boils.

Roast

  1. Weigh the joint and allow 15 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes extra.

  2. For roasting, start the meat far from the fire and gradually move it closer.

  3. Baste the meat frequently.

  4. Flour the meat near the end to enhance appearance.

  5. Cover veal and mutton with paper to preserve fat.

  6. Use dripping if not enough fat is present.

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. Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Its fat and protein set the texture and flavour of the finished dish, so it is the core of the recipe.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns and forms a more appealing outer crust.

The step that matters

Boil the meat slowly. Slow simmering keeps meat proteins from tightening and toughening, while a rapid boil makes the fibres contract and the meat dry and chewy.

“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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