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Potted Meats for Sandwiches

A spread made from cooked white meat or poultry mixed with cream, butter or jelly, served on bread or toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potted Meats for Sandwiches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove skin and any objectionable parts from the cooked meat.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces and pound it to a smooth paste.

Make the spread

  1. Gradually add cream, meat jelly, or butter while mixing.

  2. If desired, add thickened gravy for moisture.

Assemble

  1. Spread the mixture on slices of bread or toast to make sandwiches.

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. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  2. Meat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,248 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + breadtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,789 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked white meat or poultry
Forms the bulk of the spread and provides its savory flavor and paste-like body.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the paste smooth and spreadable.
Meat jelly or butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the paste hold together and spread smoothly.
Thickened gravy
Adds moisture to keep the spread from drying out.

The step that matters

Pounding the meat to a smooth paste. If the meat is not cut small and pounded fine, the fibers stay coarse and the spread will not blend smoothly with the cream or fat. Adding fat gradually while mixing helps the emulsion stay smooth instead of greasy or crumbly.

“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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