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Veal Pluck

A dish of roasted veal heart stuffed with forcemeat and bacon, served with boiled liver, minced heart, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Pluck

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the heart

  1. Wash the heart in several waters.

  2. Soak the heart for 30 minutes.

  3. Drain and dry the heart.

  4. Fill the heart with veal forcemeat.

  5. Tie thin slices of bacon around it.

  6. Roast or bake until done.

Make the mince

  1. Soak the lights and part of the liver.

  2. Boil them for 1 hour.

  3. Mince.

  4. In a stewpan, combine the mince with pepper, salt, lemon rind, mace, and nutmeg.

  5. Cover with gravy and simmer gently until cooked.

  6. Season with pepper and salt.

  7. Add parsley, ketchup, and lemon juice.

Fry and serve

  1. Slice the remaining liver.

  2. Fry it.

  3. Place the mince on a dish.

  4. Top with the heart.

  5. Garnish with fried liver, bacon, toasted bread, and parsley.

  6. Serve hot with brown gravy.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Liver + vealtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's heart
Forms the main centrepiece, and its firm muscle holds the forcemeat while roasting.
Veal forcemeat
Adds a moist, savoury stuffing that cooks inside the heart and enriches the dish.
Calf's liver
Gives a rich, mild flavour and a tender texture when sliced and fried.
Lights (lungs)
Form the soft, mild base of the mince after soaking and boiling.
Fat bacon
Melts and bastes the heart as it roasts, adding fat and browning.
Gravy
Moistens the mince as it simmers, so the meat stays tender and saucy.

The step that matters

Simmer the mince gently. Gentle heat lets the lights and liver become tender without toughening or drying. Boiling hard makes these proteins firm and rubbery, so the mince turns tough.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, veal, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, parsley, ketchup):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, veal, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, parsley, ketchup. 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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