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Dessert

Sweet Patties

Sweet Patties are sweet meat patties made from boiled calf's foot, apples, candied peel, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sweet Patties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Chop the meat of a boiled calf's foot.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with the liquor, apples, candied peels, grated nutmeg, egg yolk, brandy, and currants.

Bake

  1. Fill small pattypans with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's foot meat
Provides the body and savoury bulk of the filling.
Calf's foot liquor
Adds moisture and gelatin that helps the filling hold together.
Apples
Add moisture and a fresh, mildly tart sweetness to the filling.
Candied orange and lemon peel
Contribute concentrated sweetness and citrus aroma.
Egg yolk
Binds the filling and adds richness that helps it set and brown.
Currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

The step that matters

Baking until golden. The filling is moist and rich, so the oven must be hot enough to set the egg yolk and brown the surface without drying out the interior. Watching for golden colour rather than a fixed time helps avoid overbaking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, apple, orange, lemon, nutmeg, egg, brandy):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Cranberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, apple, orange, lemon, nutmeg, egg, brandy. 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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