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Veal Olives

Thin veal strips rolled with a cracker, butter, and seasoning mixture, sautéed and simmered in white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut veal into very thin slices.

  2. Pound the meat until it is ¼ inch thick.

  3. Trim edges.

  4. Cut into strips measuring 3 by 4 inches.

  5. Sprinkle strips with salt and pepper.

  6. Chop trimmings finely.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the chopped trimmings with crushed crackers, melted butter, and seasonings.

  2. Moisten the mixture with a slightly beaten egg.

  3. Add water or stock if necessary.

  4. Spread the mixture on the veal strips.

  5. Roll the veal strips up.

  6. Secure the rolls with small wooden skewers.

Cook and serve

  1. Dredge the rolls in flour.

  2. Sauté the rolls in butter until golden.

  3. Place the rolls in a stew pan.

  4. Cover with thin white sauce.

  5. Let simmer until tender.

  6. Serve the rolls on finger-shaped pieces of toast.

  7. Strain the thin white sauce over the top.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the tender outer wrapper that encloses the filling and cooks until soft.
Crackers
Crumbs absorb moisture and butter, binding the filling and giving it body.
Egg
Binds the filling together so it holds its shape when rolled.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the rolls brown when sautéed.
Flour
Dry coating that helps the outside of the rolls brown during sautéing.

The step that matters

Let simmer until tender. Veal is lean and connective tissue needs slow, gentle heat to soften. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat and can break the rolls apart, so keep the sauce at a bare simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, lemon, butter, egg, pepper, thyme, 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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