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Bombarded Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat, spinach, oysters, and marrow, wrapped in caul and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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 forcemeat

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

  2. Make a forcemeat with the bread crumbs, fat bacon, lemon peel, parsley, marjoram, and anchovy.

  3. Season with nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and salt; mix with egg and cream.

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

  5. Cut the fillet into 1‑inch slices around the fillet.

  6. Fill some slices with forcemeat, others with boiled spinach, bread crumbs, chopped oysters, and beef marrow.

Wrap and bake

  1. Wrap the caul tightly around the fillet.

  2. Place in a deep pot with 1 pint of water.

  3. Make a coarse paste to cover the pot and prevent burning.

  4. Bake in the oven until cooked through.

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, cooked whole around its stuffing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich during baking.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and structure.
Beef marrow
Adds richness and fat that softens the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Wrap the caul tightly around the fillet. A snug caul holds the forcemeat and slices in place during cooking, so the stuffing does not spill out or dry unevenly as the fat melts and the meat cooks through.

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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