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Preserve

Potted Veal

A dish of minced veal and ham mixed with mace and butter, pressed into pots and covered with clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potted Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the veal and ham as finely as possible.

Pot and seal

  1. Pound the minced meat in a mortar with the mace and butter until smooth.

  2. Press the mixture into pots and cover with clarified butter.

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 + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

Butter and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,405 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
Forms the lean, finely pounded base that gives the potted meat its smooth body.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and firmer texture to the minced meat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the pounded mixture spread smoothly and set soft.

The step that matters

Pounding until smooth. Mincing and pounding break the meat into fine particles and blend in the butter. If the mixture stays coarse, it will not turn smooth or hold together evenly when pressed into pots.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, butter. 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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