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Pressed Ham and Veal

A dish of pressed veal and ham layered with hard boiled eggs, chilled to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pressed Ham and Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the veal and ham separately until tender.

  2. Chop the veal and ham very fine, or use a meat chopper.

  3. Moisten each meat with its own cooking liquid until very soft.

Layer and press

  1. In a long, narrow mold or pan, place half of the veal as a layer at the bottom.

  2. Arrange a row of hard boiled eggs lengthwise on top of the veal.

  3. Cover the eggs with the chopped ham, pressing it closely around them.

  4. Add the remaining veal on top and press down firmly.

  5. Cover with a piece of cloth and place in a cool area to harden.

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. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  2. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  3. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 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 pressed loaf and, moistened with its cooking liquid, sets into a firm, sliceable mass.
Ham
Adds savory flavor and fills the layer around the eggs, binding into the set loaf.
Hard boiled eggs
Form a visible center row that shows as a pattern when the pressed loaf is sliced.

The step that matters

Moistening the chopped meat. The meat must be moistened with its own cooking liquid until very soft. Gelatin from the cooked meat sets as it cools, so the layers bind together. Dry meat would crumble when sliced.

“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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