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Veal Loaf

A loaf made from veal, pork, salt pork, eggs, crackers, and seasonings baked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 meat

  1. Cook the veal, fresh pork, and salt pork together until tender.

  2. Pass the cooked meats through a food chopper.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix the chopped meats with the cracker crumbs, beaten eggs, and seasonings.

  2. Moisten the mixture with the stock from cooking the meat.

  3. Pack the mixture into a greased baking pan.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  4. Pork + allspicetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,194 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Pulverized crackers
Absorb liquid and give the loaf body and a tender texture.
Lean veal
Provides the main meat structure and mild flavor of the loaf.
Lean fresh pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the meat from drying out as it bakes.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with the stock. Adding stock from cooking the meat restores moisture lost in cooking and chopping. Too little liquid leaves the loaf dry and crumbly, while the eggs and crackers then set it firmly as it bakes.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, egg, 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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