Skip to main content
Main

Meat Rolls

Meat rolls made from minced cold fowl or veal, seasoned with cayenne pepper and salt, wrapped in puff pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Meat Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince and pound the cold fowl or veal until smooth.

  2. Add Cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter, then mix to a smooth paste.

  3. Form the forcemeat into small rolls.

  4. Moisten the pounded meat with a little water.

  5. Wrap each forcemeat roll with the pounded meat until a good size is achieved.

Wrap and bake

  1. Fold each roll in puff pastry.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Veal + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,890 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + meattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold fowl or veal
Forms the main body of the filling, giving the rolls their meaty bulk and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the meat paste stay smooth and tender when baked.
Puff pastry
Encases the rolls and bakes into flaky, crisp, golden layers around the filling.

The step that matters

Wrapping the forcemeat roll with pounded meat. The meat layer must be even and fully enclosing so the forcemeat does not leak or dry out. Moistening the meat with water helps it bind and stay pliable while it is wrapped.

“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.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes