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Savoury Jelly to Put Into Cold Meat Pies

A savory gelatin made from veal or mutton, used as a filling for cold meat pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Savoury Jelly to Put Into Cold Meat Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Place the knuckle of veal or piece of scrag in a pot.

  2. Cover with water and add salt and pepper.

  3. Simmer slowly for three hours, skimming as needed.

  4. Strain the liquid and let it cool.

  5. Skim off the fat and reserve the jelly.

Finish the dish

  1. Mix in the mace, butter, and flour, and heat until combined.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 knuckle or scrag
Releases gelatin during long simmering, which sets the cooled liquid into a jelly.
Flour
Thickens the jelly as it heats, giving it body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished jelly.
Mace
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the jelly.

The step that matters

Skimming during the simmer. Fat and foam rise to the surface during the long simmer. Skimming them keeps the liquid clear and clean-tasting, so the cooled jelly is not greasy or cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, flour. 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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