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Spiced Veal

Veal marinated in vinegar with cloves, cinnamon, salt, and pepper, then left to pickle for at least 24 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold lean veal into pieces about 1 inch square.

  2. Measure enough vinegar to cover the veal and heat it until scalding hot.

  3. Add 12 whole cloves, ½ inch stick cinnamon, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 small red pepper or 12 peppercorns to each pint of vinegar.

Pickle and serve

  1. Pour the hot vinegar and spices over the veal.

  2. Let the veal stand in the pickle for at least 24 hours before serving cold for luncheon or supper.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cinnamon + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Vinegar + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold lean veal
Is the meat being pickled, so it firms and turns tender-firm as the vinegar penetrates.
Vinegar
Acidifies the surface and preserves the meat while it marinates, giving the pickle its tang.

The step that matters

Letting the veal stand at least 24 hours. Acid from the vinegar penetrates the meat slowly, so a short soak leaves the veal sharp on the outside and underseasoned inside. The full standing time lets the spices and acidity reach the centre of each piece.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, vinegar, clove, pepper):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, vinegar, clove, pepper. 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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