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Roast Fillet of Veal

A veal fillet roasted with a salt pork and breadcrumb stuffing, served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Fillet of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal and fill the cavity with a stuffing made from bread crumbs, chopped salt pork, pepper, coarse sea salt, and sweet marjoram.

  2. Make deep incisions in the veal and fill them with the stuffing or insert strips of salt pork.

  3. If available, use a larding needle to insert strips of pork into the veal without cutting it.

  4. Bind the fillet tightly with twine.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Place the veal in a roasting pan with a little water, baste often, and roast at 400°F (200°C) until thoroughly cooked.

  2. To make the gravy, pour off the fat from the dripping pan, add broth or water if needed, season with pepper and coarse sea salt, and thicken with browned flour.

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. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together883 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of veal
Forms the main meat that is roasted and carries the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and holding its shape.
Salt pork
Adds fat and richness, moistening the lean veal as it melts during roasting.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running thin.

The step that matters

Binding the fillet tightly with twine. Veal is lean and the stuffed cavity can open or loosen as it cooks. Tight binding keeps the roast in a compact shape so it cooks evenly and the stuffing stays inside.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pork, pepper, 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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