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Veal Loaf

A loaf of ground veal and salt pork mixed with crackers, butter, eggs, and seasonings, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the veal and salt pork through a meat grinder.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the ground meat with the rolled crackers, butter, beaten eggs, salt, pepper, sage, extract of celery, and onion until thoroughly combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pack the mixture tightly into a deep tin baking dish. Dot the top with bits of butter. Sprinkle with fine cracker crumbs. Cover with another tin.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  3. Remove the cover. Brown the top.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf, giving it its meaty structure and texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat, which keeps the loaf moist and flavourful during baking.
Eggs
Bind the ground meat so the loaf holds together when sliced.
Crackers
Absorb juices and soften, helping the loaf stay tender and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the top when dotted over the loaf.

The step that matters

Packing the mixture into the dish. Packing tightly removes air pockets so the loaf holds together when sliced. Loose packing can cause it to crumble and dry unevenly in the oven.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, butter, egg, pepper, sage, celery):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, butter, egg, pepper, sage, celery. 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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