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Veal Loaf

A baked loaf of finely chopped veal mixed with cracker crumbs, eggs, butter, milk, flour, sage, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the veal, cracker crumbs, beaten eggs, butter, salt, sage, pepper, and milk until well combined.

  3. Shape the mixture into a loaf and place it in a baking dish.

Bake and baste

  1. To make the sauce, melt the butter, stir in the flour, and gradually add boiling water until smooth.

  2. Bake for 1 hour, basting often with the sauce made from melted butter, flour, and boiling water.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, providing protein structure and a meaty texture.
Eggs
Bind the chopped veal and crumbs together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the meat, keeping the loaf tender rather than dense.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water basting sauce so it clings to the loaf's surface.

The step that matters

Basting the loaf. Basting with the butter, flour and boiling water sauce adds moisture and fat to the surface during the hour of baking, helping prevent the lean veal from drying out and encouraging a golden crust.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, pepper, milk, flour. 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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