Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Boiled Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Boil meats slowly to prevent hardening the outside.
For veal, boil for 3.5 hours.
For pork, boil for 4 hours.
For beef or mutton, allow 1 hour for every 4 pounds.
For lamb, boil for 1.5 hours.
To retain juice in meat, plunge it into boiling water.
For soup, start with cold water to extract juices.
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.
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Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together896 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Pork + lambtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together623 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Veal + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,930 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal leg
- Large cut that needs long, slow boiling to cook through evenly.
- Pork leg
- Large cut that needs long, slow boiling to cook through evenly.
- Lamb leg
- Smaller cut that needs a shorter boil than veal or pork.
- Beef or mutton
- Boiled by weight, about one hour for every four pounds.
The step that matters
Boil meats slowly. A gentle simmer cooks the interior without toughening and hardening the outside. Rapid boiling tightens the proteins at the surface, making the meat dry and chewy.
“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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