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Tasty Cold Meat Sandwiches

A cold sandwich made with minced veal, beef, or mutton mixed with chutney, mustard, shallots, butter, and cress.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Tasty Cold Meat Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove skin and fat from the meat, then mince or pound it well with 1 oz of butter.

  2. Add mustard, chutney, and shallots (chopped small and fried in the remaining butter until pale brown).

  3. Season the mixture and rub it through a sieve.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture over thin slices of buttered bread.

  2. Sprinkle with additional mustard and cress.

  3. Top with another slice of bread, press down, and cut into neat shapes.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

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

  4. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Shallot + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold veal, beef, or mutton
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the minced meat bind into a smooth spread.
Shallots
Fried until pale brown, they add mild sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Chutney
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the richness of the meat and butter.
Mustard
Adds sharp heat and aroma that cut through the fatty meat.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the minced filling through a sieve breaks up remaining fibres and lumps, giving a smooth, even spread. Skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse texture that tears the thin bread.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, shallot, butter, bread. 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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