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Veal Omelet

A baked loaf of veal, salt pork, eggs, and herbs, crusted with crushed crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Omelet

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

  1. Remove all gristle from the veal.

Mix and shape

  1. In a bowl, combine veal, salt pork, eggs, cream or milk, crushed crackers, pepper, sage, thyme, and salt.

  2. Form the mixture into a loaf.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 hours, basting with butter and water until browned.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its meaty texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Boston crackers
Absorb moisture and help give the loaf a tender, less dense texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean veal moist.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture, keeping the mixture soft and tender during baking.

The step that matters

Basting while baking. Basting with butter and water keeps the surface from drying out over a long bake and helps it brown evenly. Lean veal dries easily, so the liquid matters for a moist loaf.

Swap the thyme

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

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

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