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Butcher Meat

A stuffed collar of meat rolled with bread crumbs, parsley, eggs, and spices, then roasted and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Butcher Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Strew grated bread and minced parsley over the meat.

  2. Add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs and minced egg whites, mixing well.

  3. Roll the meat tightly and secure it with a skewer, then sew it up.

  4. Rub the collar with a beaten egg and roll it in leftover crumbs and parsley.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the meat before a clear fire for 1.5 hours.

  2. Draw gravy from the bones and brown it.

  3. Serve the meat with gravy and garnish with sliced lemon or pickles.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a firm, sliceable filling that holds the rolled meat together.
Egg whites
Bind the minced filling so it sets firmly rather than crumbling when sliced.
Beaten egg
Gives the outer coating a glossy surface that helps the crumbs brown during roasting.
Grated bread
Absorbs juices and adds body to the filling and crumb coating.

The step that matters

Rolling and securing the meat. A loosely rolled collar can open or leak filling during roasting. Rolling it tightly and securing it with a skewer and sewing keeps the filling enclosed and the roll an even shape as the meat cooks.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, nutmeg, bread, parsley, egg, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, nutmeg, bread, parsley, egg, lemon. 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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