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Savouby Meat Rolls

Savoury meat rolls made with minced meat, ham or tongue, mashed potatoes, and spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savouby Meat Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine the minced cold meat and ham or tongue in a bowl.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, then moisten with a little sauce.

Make the paste

  1. For every ½ pound of meat, mix in 1 pound of mashed potatoes, a little flour, and 1‑2 egg yolks to form a stiff paste.

  2. Roll out the potato paste to ¼ inch thick and cut into oblong pieces, about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  3. Place a heaping teaspoon of the meat mixture on each piece, sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  4. Fold the paste over the filling, overlapping the edges, and press down the ends firmly.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the tops with beaten egg and sprinkle with crushed vermicelli.

  2. Place the rolls on a buttered baking sheet and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) until light brown.

  3. Serve neatly on a folded napkin or dish paper, garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the savoury filling that gives the rolls their flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Forms the soft, pliable paste that encloses the filling and holds its shape.
Egg yolks
Bind the potato paste so it holds together as a stiff dough.
Beaten egg
Brushed on top, it helps the crust turn golden brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Pressing the paste edges closed. If the edges are not pressed firmly, the seams can open during baking and the filling may leak out into the pan.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, pepper, nutmeg, sauce, flour, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, pepper, nutmeg, sauce, flour, 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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