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Veal Loaf

A loaf of ground veal mixed with pork or butter, crackers, eggs, spices, and lemon, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, mix the veal, salt pork or butter, pounded crackers, beaten eggs, black pepper, salt, sage, grated nutmeg, and lemon juice until well combined.

  2. Press the mixture into a bread pan.

  3. Bake for 2 hours.

Cool and serve

  1. Allow to cool and serve 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. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

  2. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main body and meaty structure of the loaf.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so it holds its shape when sliced.
Pounded crackers
Absorb moisture and add crumbs that help the loaf hold together.
Salt pork or butter
Adds fat, which keeps the loaf moist and tender as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the pan. Packing the mixture firmly removes air pockets so the loaf sets dense and sliceable rather than crumbling. Overworking the raw veal can make it tough, so mix only until combined.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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