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Veal or Beef Omelet

A baked omelet made with veal or beef, pork, eggs, crackers, milk, sage, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal or Beef Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the veal or beef and pork finely.

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped meat with eggs, rolled crackers, milk, sage, pepper, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking tin.

  2. Bake for about 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

  4. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

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

  5. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the meat mixture and help it set firm as it bakes.
Rolled crackers
Absorb liquid and add body so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture stays tender rather than dry.
Veal or beef
Provides the main structure and rich meaty flavor of the dish.

The step that matters

Baking time. Baking long enough lets the egg proteins fully set, so the loaf holds together when sliced cold. Underbaking leaves it soft and crumbly.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, egg, milk, pepper. 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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