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Meat Rolls

Meat rolls wrapped in puff pastry, seasoned with cayenne pepper and sea salt, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

  1. Prepare the puff pastry as previously described.

  2. Mince and pound the cold fowl or veal.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Add cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt to the meat mixture.

  2. Add butter and pound until smooth.

  3. Use a little water to moisten the pounded meat.

  4. Make the forcemeat into small rolls.

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

Bake

  1. Fold each roll in puff pastry.

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

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 savoury, meaty bulk.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the pounded meat rich and smooth, and helps it stay moist when baked.
Puff paste
Wraps the rolls and bakes into flaky, layered pastry that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Pounding in the butter until smooth. The meat must be evenly emulsified with the fat so the forcemeat bakes tender and moist rather than dry or crumbly. Adding water helps keep the mixture pliable.

“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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