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Cold Meats

A pie filled with a mixture of cooked rabbit, ham, livers, veal, and seasoned poultry, served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare a filling with cooked rabbit stewed with ham or salt pork.

  2. Make a force‑meat by beating the livers in a mortar, adding pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and sweet herbs.

  3. Bone the poultry or game bird and season the inside with pounded mace, allspice, pepper, and salt.

  4. Layer the inside with force‑meat, seasoned veal, and ham, then roll the bird up with the skin meeting at the back.

  5. Fill any cavities with slices of seasoned veal, ham, and force‑meat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie mold with puff pastry, fill with force‑meat, and place the rolled bird inside.

  2. Wet the rim of the pie, cover it with pastry, pinch the edges together, and decorate with pastry leaves.

  3. Brush the pastry with egg before adding leaves for a nice finish.

  4. Bake the pie at 300°F (150°C) for four hours and serve cold.

Add the gravy

  1. Make a good gravy from the bones, reduce it, and pour it into the pie through a funnel.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  3. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Livers
Give the force-meat a rich, savoury body and flavour when beaten into a paste.
Poultry or game birds
Provide the rolled meat centre that holds the layered filling together.
Seasoned veal
Adds moisture and a mild, tender texture to the layered filling.
Egg for brushing
Gives the pastry a glossy, golden browned finish in the oven.
Gravy made from bones
Adds moisture to the pie so the filling stays juicy when cold.
Pastry for pie crust
Encloses the filling and forms the structure that holds the pie together.

The step that matters

Pouring the gravy through a funnel. Gravy must be well reduced and cooled enough to set into a jelly; if it is too thin, it will not firm up and the cold pie will be soggy and loose.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, ham, liver, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, veal):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, ham, liver, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, veal. 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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