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Spiced Veal

A veal loaf made with crackers, pork, eggs, ketchup, and lemon, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Spiced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Use a meat grinder to chop the veal, crackers, and salt pork.

Shape and bake

  1. Mix well with the beaten eggs, tomato ketchup, lemon juice, lemon rind, salt, and pepper.

  2. Form the mixture into a loaf.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

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

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,592 recipes

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

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

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

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 loaf and gives it a rich, meaty texture.
Beaten eggs
Bind the ground mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold together while it cooks.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist during baking.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that season the loaf and aid browning.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Ground veal mixed with eggs must reach a safe internal temperature throughout. A slow oven cooks it evenly, and the loaf should be checked in the centre rather than judged by its surface colour.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, egg, ketchup, lemon, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, egg, ketchup, lemon, 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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