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Veal Loaf

A loaf made from veal, salt pork, eggs, crackers, salt, pepper, and parsley, baked and sliced.

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 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).

  2. Chop the veal and salt pork very fine.

Make and bake the loaf

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, eggs, crushed crackers, salt, pepper, and parsley. Mix well and shape into a loaf.

  2. Place in a baking dish and bake for 1 hour.

  3. Let cool, then slice thin.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 structure.
Salt pork
Adds fat, which keeps the loaf moist and adds rich flavor as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold together with a tender texture.

The step that matters

Chop the veal and salt pork very fine. Fine chopping spreads the meat and fat evenly through the mixture, so the loaf binds well and stays tender rather than crumbly or dense in spots.

Swap the parsley

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

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

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