Skip to main content
Main

Veal Cake

A savory cake made with veal and ham, seasoned with spices and topped with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a mold.

Make the cake

  1. Layer the mold with veal and ham slices.

  2. Season the layers with cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, beaten mace, fresh parsley, shallot, and hard‑boiled egg slices.

  3. Press the mixture down firmly.

  4. Bake until set.

Add the gravy and serve

  1. Boil isinglass in water to make a veal gravy.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Add a small quantity of catsup to the gravy.

  4. Pour the gravy over the veal cake while it is hot.

  5. Let the cake cool.

  6. Turn the cake out of the mold.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the body of the cake and sets into a firm, sliceable mass when baked.
Isinglass
Gelatin-like binder that sets the veal gravy so it firms as the cake cools.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliceable texture to the layers.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and a contrasting texture between veal layers.

The step that matters

Pour the gravy over the cake while it is hot. Hot gravy soaks into the warm, set surface and then gels as it cools. If it is poured cold or too late, it sits on top instead of binding and setting the layers.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, ham, pepper, parsley, shallot, egg. 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.

More veal cake recipes

Bordyke 6Cold 3 See all 66 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes