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Veal Cakes

Veal cakes are small patties made from finely chopped veal and sweet salt pork, seasoned with onion or herbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the veal and sweet salt pork finely.

  2. Season with chopped onion or herbs.

  3. Mix the meats with a dusting of flour and season to taste.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes until golden brown.

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Pork and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,187 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them a tender, meaty texture.
Sweet salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and carries flavour through the frying.
Flour
Dusting helps the cakes hold their shape and promotes browning during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until golden brown. Frying over sufficient heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building flavour and a crisp crust. Cooking too gently leaves the cakes pale and greasy, while too much heat can scorch the outside before the meat inside is cooked through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, flour. 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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