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Meat Jelly

A gelatinous dish made by boiling veal and beef with fat and brandy, then straining it.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Meat Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the veal, beef, and brandy in a jar with a cover.

  2. Place the jar in a pan of boiling water.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil for 4 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture through muslin.

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 + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Beef + brandytop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Veal + brandytop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Collagen in the meat slowly breaks down into gelatin, helping the liquid set into a jelly.
Beef
Collagen in the meat slowly breaks down into gelatin, adding body and meaty flavor to the jelly.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a sharp, warm flavor to the meat juices.

The step that matters

Keeping the jar covered during the long boil. A cover keeps the juices from evaporating during the long cooking, so the meat stays moist and its juices remain concentrated enough to set as a jelly.

“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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