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Roast Leg of Veal

Roast leg of veal seasoned with salt, stuffed with fat salt pork, baked with butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Veal

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

  1. Wipe the leg of veal and sprinkle it with coarse sea salt.

  2. Stuff the veal and sew it into shape.

  3. Make incisions with a sharp knife and insert strips of fat salt pork.

  4. Place the veal on a rack in a dripping pan.

  5. Dredge the meat and bottom of the pan with flour.

Roast and baste

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for three to four hours.

  2. Baste every fifteen minutes with melted butter mixed with boiling water until used.

  3. During the last half hour, remove the fat salt pork.

  4. Ensure the veal is thoroughly cooked before serving.

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 + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pork + flourtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 roast, which becomes tender with long, gentle oven cooking.
Fat salt pork
Strips inserted into the meat add fat that bastes the lean veal from within as it roasts.
Butter
Melted fat for basting adds richness and helps the surface brown and stay moist.
Flour
Dredging the meat and pan bottom helps form a browned crust and thickens the pan juices.

The step that matters

Ensure the veal is thoroughly cooked before serving. Veal is a large, dense cut, so the centre can stay underdone while the outside browns. Checking that the thickest part is fully cooked keeps the meat safe and evenly textured.

“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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