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Welton Veal

A cold layered veal dish with eggs, ham, sage, and seasonings, steamed and sliced.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Welton Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Layer

  1. Slice the hard-boiled eggs and line the bottom of a dish with them.

  2. Add a layer of thinly sliced raw veal.

  3. Mix chopped ham with one egg and sage, then add this mixture as the next layer.

  4. Continue layering with sliced veal until the dish is full.

  5. Season each layer with coarse sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the dish with a flat cover and place a weight on top to press it down.

  2. Steam for 4 hours.

  3. Let it cool, then cut into thin slices to serve cold.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw veal
Forms the main meaty body of the terrine, which firms and sets as it cooks.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide firm, sliced layers that show a neat pattern when the terrine is cut.
Chopped ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and a second texture within the layers.
Egg
Binds the chopped ham and sage into a mixture that holds together when sliced.

The step that matters

Pressing the dish under a weight. Pressing compresses the layers so they bind together and slice cleanly when cold. Without even pressure, the terrine can crumble or separate.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, veal, ham, 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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