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Meat Jellies for Pies and Sauces

A gelatin made from beef, veal, and ham, simmered with vegetables and spices for use in pies and sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Meat Jellies for Pies and Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Combine beef, veal, and ham in a large pot.

  2. Add cold water, carrots, parsley, onion, bay leaves, mace, peppercorns, and salt.

  3. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer.

  4. Cook for 5 to 6 hours.

Finish

  1. Skim off any fat after cooling.

  2. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve or cloth.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef shin
Breaks down during long simmering, releasing collagen that turns into gelatin for a set texture.
Veal knuckle or neck
Adds collagen-rich connective tissue that dissolves into gelatin, giving body to the stock.
Lean ham
Contributes savory, salty flavor to the stock.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic flavor to the liquid.

The step that matters

Gentle simmer. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets collagen slowly dissolve into gelatin while keeping the stock clear. Boiling vigorously emulsifies fat and clouds the liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, carrot, parsley, onion, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, carrot, parsley, onion, clove. 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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