Name: Veal Pudding, Baked
Ingredients: ½ pound cold roast veal, finely minced; 1 teaspoon salt; a pinch of cayenne pepper; a pinch of grated nutmeg; grated rind of ½ lemon; ½ pint boiling gravy (or cream); 2 ounces finely grated bread crumbs; 3 eggs, well beaten

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Pudding, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the pudding

In a bowl, mix the minced veal with salt, cayenne, nutmeg, and lemon rind.
Pour the boiling gravy over the bread crumbs and let cool.
Stir the cooled mixture into the veal mixture and add the beaten eggs.
Whisk the mixture briskly for 1-2 minutes.

Bake

Transfer to a well-buttered dish and bake for 1 hour.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast veal: Provides the main body of the pudding as the meat that sets into a firm, sliceable mass.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set when baked, giving the pudding its structure.
Bread crumbs: Absorb the hot gravy and help hold the mince together with a soft, moist texture.
Gravy: Adds moisture and savoury flavour, and softens the bread crumbs for even mixing.

The step that matters

Whisk the mixture briskly for 1-2 minutes. Brisk whisking spreads the beaten eggs evenly through the mince and crumbs so the pudding sets uniformly rather than in pockets. Too little mixing leaves uneven texture, while the eggs must be fully combined before baking.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Veal Pudding, Baked