Skip to main content
Main

Russian Brawn

Russian Brawn is a chilled meat jelly made with cold meat, stock, shallots, cloves, lemon, and semolina.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,677 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Russian Brawn

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold meat into 1‑inch cubes.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the stock, shallots, cloves, lemon, and semolina.

  3. Simmer gently until the semolina dissolves.

Set and serve

  1. Add the cold meat and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + semolinatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + semolinatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Semolina
Thickens the stock as it cooks and helps the mixture set firm when chilled.
Cold meat
Forms the body of the brawn, giving the set dish its substance and bite.
Stock
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor that the semolina thickens.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the semolina dissolves. Boiling hard or stopping too early can leave the semolina grainy or unthickened, so the mixture may not set properly when chilled.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, shallot, lemon, semolina):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, shallot, lemon, semolina. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes