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Veal or Lamb Patties

Small cakes made from finely chopped veal or lamb mixed with bread crumbs, sage, salt, pepper, eggs, and butter, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Lamb Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cold veal or lamb finely.

  2. Combine equal parts of meat and bread crumbs.

  3. Season with sage, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

  4. Moisten the mixture with eggs and melted butter or gravy from the meat.

Cook

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in butter until well 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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold veal or lamb
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the patties.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the patties hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the cakes hold their form.
Melted butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the cakes brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying until well browned. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the surface, which needs enough heat and dry surface to develop flavor. Pale, underheated cakes taste bland and may be undercooked inside.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pepper, egg, 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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