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Veal, Potted

A finely chopped veal and ham mixture cooked in a jar, pounded into a smooth paste, and served in small pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Veal, Potted

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the meat

  1. Grease a jar with butter and place the veal and ham inside.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of cold water and cover the jar with buttered paper.

  3. Place the jar in a saucepan of boiling water and cook gently for 3 hours on the stove or in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

Make the paste

  1. Pound the meat finely in a mortar, gradually adding the liquid from the jar and enough oiled butter to create a smooth paste.

  2. Season liberally with cayenne, salt, and pepper, and add mace to taste.

  3. Pass the mixture through a sieve, press into small 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. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 main body of the paste, providing structure and rich meaty texture once pounded smooth.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and some fat that moistens the finished paste.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the pounded meat become a smooth, spreadable paste.

The step that matters

Gentle, covered cooking of the jar. Slow, gentle heat in a covered jar cooks the meat through while keeping it moist. Boiling hard or letting the water dry out can toughen the meat and drive off juices needed for the paste.

Swap the mace

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

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

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