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Spiced Veal

A baked loaf of spiced veal mixed with crackers, ketchup, eggs, and lemon, baked with butter and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Spiced Veal

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 loaf

  1. Chop the veal steak and salt pork as fine as sausage meat.

  2. Add the rolled crackers, tomato ketchup, beaten eggs, salt, pepper, and grated lemon.

  3. Mold the mixture into a loaf shape and place it in a small dripping pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the loaf with rolled cracker crumbs.

  2. Baste with hot water and melted butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours, basting frequently.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steak
Provides the main body of the loaf, with lean meat that binds when finely chopped.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist during the long bake.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Boston crackers
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the loaf stay tender rather than dense.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that season the meat and aid browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Basting during the 3-hour bake. Veal is lean and dries out over a long oven time. Regular basting with hot water and butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, ketchup, egg, pepper, lemon, butter. 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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