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Sweet Patties

Sweet patties made from boiled calf's foot, apples, candied orange and lemon peel, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the meat from the boiled calf's foot.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with the liquor, apples, candied orange peel, candied lemon peel, fresh peel and juice of lemon, grated nutmeg, egg yolk, brandy, and currants.

Bake

  1. Fill small pattypans with the mixture.

  2. Bake 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
Forms the savoury base that gives the filling body and structure.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and helps it set and brown in the oven.
Apples
Add moisture and a tart sweetness that balances the rich meat.
Currants
Provide chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.
Candied orange peel
Adds sweetness and a bright, aromatic citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Filling the pattypans. Overfilling lets the mixture spill and burn in the oven, while underfilling leaves thin, dry patties. Fill the cases evenly so each one bakes at the same rate and holds its shape.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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