Name: Excellent Meat Rolls
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; ½ pound half-roasted veal; ½ pound chicken or turkey; Forcemeat (from receipt No. 1, Chapter VI); Water (for moistening); Puff pastry

Why it works: Veal and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,243 recipes. Both carry 3-butanedione, which smells buttery, creamy. The science ↓

Excellent Meat Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

Pound the veal and chicken together with butter and seasonings.
Make forcemeat according to the specified recipe.
Form the forcemeat into small rolls, no larger than a finger.
Wrap each roll with pounded meat, moistening with a teaspoon of water.

Wrap and bake

Fold the rolls in puff pastry.
Bake in a preheated oven 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.

Veal + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,243 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).
Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,902 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + vealtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the pounded meat filling.
Half-roasted veal: Provides the main meaty body and flavour of the filling.
Chicken or turkey: Adds more meat to the filling, giving it a softer, tender texture.
Puff pastry: Bakes into flaky, crisp layers that brown around the rolls.

“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.