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Excellent Meat Rolls

Meat rolls made from pounded half-roasted meat, butter, seasonings, wrapped in puff pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Excellent Meat Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Pound the half-roasted meat as for potting.

  2. Mix with butter and seasonings to make a forcemeat.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the forcemeat into small rolls, no larger than a finger.

  2. Wrap the pounded meat around each roll, moistening with water.

  3. Fold the rolls in puff pastry.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes, until the crust is 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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  2. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Half-roasted veal, chicken, or turkey
Provides the main protein, which sets into a firm, sliceable forcemeat when cooked.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich in texture.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky shell that browns in the oven and encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Keep the rolls no larger than a finger. The forcemeat has to cook through in the time the pastry takes to brown. A thicker roll stays raw in the centre while the outside over-browns.

“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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