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Veal, Potted

A preserved meat paste made from finely chopped veal and ham, seasoned and set in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal, Potted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Grease a jar with butter and place the veal and ham inside.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of cold water and cover the jar with buttered paper.

Cook

  1. Place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water and cook gently for 3 hours on the stove or in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

Make the paste and pot

  1. Pound the meat finely in a mortar, gradually adding the liquid from the jar and enough oiled butter to create a smooth paste.

  2. Season with cayenne, salt, and pepper, adding mace to taste.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve and press into small pots.

  4. Cover with clarified butter and store for use.

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

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

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

Mace and pepper 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
Provides the main meaty body and firm texture of the paste.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and richness to the meat mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, spreadable texture and seals the potted surface.

The step that matters

Gentle cooking in boiling water. Cooking gently for the full 3 hours lets the meat become tender and release its juices, which the paste needs to become smooth. Cooking too hard can toughen the meat and dry the mixture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, butter, 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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