Why it works: Beef and mutton are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,373 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Condensed Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the meat into small pieces.
Cook
Place all the meat into a jar without water and tie the jar closely.
Put the jar in a saucepan of water and boil for 7 hours.
Strain and serve
Strain off the liquid and let it cool.
Serve as jelly diluted with boiling water or warmed for a patient.
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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Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,373 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,394 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides the main meat flavour and gelatin that sets the liquid as it cooks.
- Veal
- Adds collagen-rich connective tissue that helps the broth set into a jelly when cooled.
- Mutton
- Contributes meaty flavour and collagen that thickens the strained liquid into a jelly.
The step that matters
Boiling the sealed jar for 7 hours. The jar must stay tightly closed so the meat cooks in its own juices without water. Long, gentle heat slowly breaks down collagen into gelatin, which is what later makes the liquid set.
“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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