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Veal Cake

A baked mixture of veal, salt pork, bread crumbs, herbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into pieces, removing all gristle and skin.

  2. Finely chop the salt pork.

Mix and shape

  1. In a bowl, mix the veal, salt pork, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, parsley, and seasoning to taste.

  2. Bind the mixture together with the eggs and mix thoroughly.

  3. Shape the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until cooked through. Serve hot or cold.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  3. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the main body of the cake, providing the bulk and meaty texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the lean veal from drying out as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the cake hold its shape while it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm when baked.

The step that matters

Bind the mixture thoroughly. Mixing the eggs in fully spreads the binder evenly, so the cake holds together when shaped and sliced rather than crumbling apart in the oven.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

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