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Emperors Roast

A loaf of finely chopped beef, veal, and pork mixed with breadcrumbs, onion, eggs, and spices, baked and basted with milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Emperors Roast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped beef, veal, and pork.

  3. Add the grated bread crumbs, grated onion, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and eggs. Mix well.

  4. Shape the mixture into a loaf and place it in a buttered pan.

  5. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 1.5 hours, basting occasionally with milk to create gravy.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meaty body and rich flavor of the loaf.
Veal
Adds a mild, tender texture that softens the blended meat.
Pork
Adds fat that keeps the loaf moist and flavorful as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and help the loaf hold its shape and stay moist.
Eggs
Bind the meat and crumbs together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Basting with milk during baking. Milk basted over the loaf helps the surface brown and forms the drippings that become the gravy. Basting only occasionally keeps the heat from drying the top and lets the juices collect in the pan.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, pork, bread, onion, pepper, egg):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pork, bread, onion, pepper, 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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