Skip to main content
Main

Veal Loaf

A loaf of finely chopped veal mixed with breadcrumbs, butter, eggs, spices, and bacon, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 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 mixture

  1. Chop the veal and bacon or ham finely.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with bread crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, celery salt, sage, and chopped onion.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

Bake and brown

  1. Pack the mixture tightly into a square cake tin.

  2. Cover with small pieces of butter and a layer of bread crumbs.

  3. Cover with another tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) for two hours.

  4. Uncover and brown the top.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Sage + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 its meaty texture.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and crumbs together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and moisture, keeping the loaf tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the top brown during baking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that carries through the lean veal.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture tightly into the tin. Firm packing removes air pockets so the loaf sets into a compact slice instead of crumbling apart when cut.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, sage, egg, bread, celery. 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.

More veal loaf recipes

Spiced 11Creole 3 See all 380 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes