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Cold Meat with Rice in Mould

A dish of finely minced cold meat mixed with boiled rice, eggs, gravy, onion, parsley, and seasonings, steamed in a buttered basin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cold Meat with Rice in Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely mince the cold meat.

  2. Peel, scald, and mince the onion.

  3. Mix all ingredients, binding with the eggs and gravy.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered basin and steam for one hour.

  2. Thicken some stock with butter and flour, then add 1 teaspoon of any good table sauce.

  3. Turn out the shape and pour the gravy around it.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  4. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it firm when steamed.
Cold meat
Forms the main body and bulk of the mould.
Boiled rice
Adds bulk and a soft texture that holds the shape.
Gravy
Adds moisture and helps bind the mixture together.

The step that matters

Steam the mould gently. Eggs set as they heat, so steaming at a steady gentle heat gives a firm but tender mould. Too much heat can make it rubbery or cause it to crack.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, egg, parsley, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, egg, parsley, 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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