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Devilled Meats

Slices of meat are marinated in claret, lemon juice, oil, chilli vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mushroom ketchup, mustard, pepper, nutmeg, salt, cayenne, and butter, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Devilled Meats

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place thin slices of cold meat in a deep dish.

  3. Saturate the meat with claret, lemon juice, oil, chilli vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and mushroom ketchup.

  4. Season with mustard, pepper, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne to taste.

  5. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

  2. 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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Thin slices of cold meat
Forms the body of the dish and absorbs the seasoned liquid as it bakes.
Claret
Adds moisture and acidity that flavour the meat as it soaks and bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the surface and helps it brown in the oven.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth from fermented mushrooms, boosting the umami flavour.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, vinegar, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, mustard, pepper):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Red currantfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, vinegar, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, mustard, pepper. 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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