Skip to main content
Main

Marinated Veal

A preserved veal dish made by marinating and cooking veal cutlets with butter, eggs, and spices, then storing in olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Marinated Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlet

  1. Beat the veal cutlet with a rolling pin.

  2. In a pan, heat butter, then add eggs and flour. Lay the cutlet in the pan and let it stew until cooked through.

  3. Once cold, cut the cutlet into pieces and place in oblong pots. Cover the pieces with best olive oil.

Make the mixed veal

  1. For the second method, mix chopped veal, ham, bacon, eschalots, parsley, thyme, mace, cayenne, and salt in a mortar until well combined.

  2. Press the mixture into a mold lined with thin slices of fat bacon and let it sit under weight for a week.

  3. After a week, cut into thick slices and fry in boiling olive oil until browned. Once cooled, place the slices in pots and cover with best olive oil.

Store

  1. Tie a bladder over the pots and store in a dry, cool place.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + thymetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Thyme + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Veal
Forms the main meat body, giving the dish its firm, sliceable texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the cooked meat into a coherent texture.
Flour
Helps thicken and bind the egg mixture, giving it body as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and gentle browning in the pan.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour, keeping the pressed meat moist and rich.
Lean ham
Contributes savoury, salty flavour and a firmer, meatier bite.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture under weight for a week. Pressing removes air and binds the minced meat into a dense, sliceable block. Keeping it cool and covered in oil while it sets prevents spoilage and keeps the texture firm.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, egg, flour, ham, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, egg, flour, ham, parsley, thyme. 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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes