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Bombarded Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat, spinach, oysters, and marrow, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Bombarded Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing the bread crumbs, fat bacon, lemon peel, parsley, marjoram, anchovy, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, salt, egg, and cream.

  3. Fill the cavity where the bone was with the forcemeat.

  4. Cut the fillet into 1-inch slices around the fillet.

  5. Fill each slice with forcemeat, boiled spinach, bread crumbs, chopped oysters, and beef marrow.

  6. Wrap the caul tightly around the fillet.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the fillet in a deep pot with 1 pint of water.

  2. Cover with a coarse paste to prevent burning in the oven.

  3. Bake until cooked through, then skim off the fat.

  4. In a saucepan, combine the gravy with lemon pickle, mushroom ketchup, browning sauce, morels, and truffles.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing as the meat that is cooked through.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced and baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bulk out the forcemeat, giving it a soft, cohesive texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and richness, keeping the forcemeat moist during baking.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and fat that enriches the stuffing and keeps it moist.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the forcemeat binding.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through, then skim off the fat. Veal fillet must reach a safe internal temperature without drying out, and the stuffing needs to set. Cooking gently in liquid helps the meat stay moist, while skimming removes rendered fat so the gravy stays clean and not greasy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lemon, parsley, marjoram, anchovy, pepper, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, parsley, marjoram, anchovy, pepper, egg. 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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