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Veal Loaf

A baked loaf made from veal, salt pork, herbs, and breadcrumbs, served cold with celery or pickled peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal Loaf

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 the meat

  1. Fry sliced salt pork until delicately browned, then remove the pork from the grease.

  2. Place the pork in a pot and arrange the veal on top.

  3. Sprinkle parsley over the veal and add water.

  4. Cover the pot and simmer for three hours.

  5. Let the mixture cool, then chop it into pea‑sized pieces.

  6. Remove the parsley.

Make the loaf

  1. Mix in thyme, cayenne pepper, black pepper, onion juice, beaten egg, melted butter, and jelly.

  2. Add salt to taste.

  3. If the mixture is too dry, add a little water.

  4. Pack the mixture smoothly into a baking dish.

  5. Cover the top with bread crumbs.

  6. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for one hour, covered.

Serve

  1. Slice cold.

  2. Garnish with celery, pickled peaches, skinned ripe tomatoes, or sliced lemon.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and, after slow simmering, sets into a sliceable texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the meat as it is browned and simmered.
Beaten egg
Binds the chopped meat together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the mixture.
Jelly from the meat
Adds gelatin and meaty flavor, helping the loaf hold together and stay moist.

The step that matters

Simmering the veal for three hours. Long, gentle simmering breaks down tough connective tissue in the veal and releases gelatin, which makes the meat tender and helps the cooled loaf set. Too vigorous a boil can toughen the meat and dry it out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, veal, parsley, thyme, pepper, egg, butter. 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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