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Veal Omelet

A baked veal loaf made with salt pork, crackers, sweet cream, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the veal, salt pork, rolled crackers, sweet cream, salt, pepper, sage, and thyme until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into a loaf.

Bake

  1. Place the loaf in a baking dish and bake for 3 hours.

  2. Baste often with butter for the first part of cooking, then use the drippings from the loaf.

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it a meaty, savory texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist and adds savory flavor during baking.
Soda crackers
Absorb liquid and help bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the loaf tender as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baste often with butter for the first part of cooking. Veal is lean and dries out easily during a long bake. Regular basting with butter adds fat and moisture to the surface, helping the loaf stay juicy and brown.

Swap the thyme

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, 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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