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Potthd Veal

A dish of cooked veal and boiled ham ground with stuffing, seasoned, pressed into small pots and sealed with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potthd Veal

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pass the veal, ham, and stuffing through a meat grinder twice.

  2. Add 2 oz of butter to the mixture.

  3. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, and gravy to the mixture, then mix thoroughly.

Pot and seal

  1. Press firmly into small pots.

  2. Cover the mixture with melted butter.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the bulk of the potted mixture and gives it its meaty body.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and its melted cover seals the pots against air.
Boiled ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and extra meaty texture to the mixture.
Gravy
Contributes savoury depth and moisture to bind the mixture.

The step that matters

Press firmly into small pots. Pressing removes air pockets so the mixture packs densely and holds together when chilled. Trapped air can spoil the texture and encourage spoilage beneath the butter seal.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, butter, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, butter, nutmeg. 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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