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Roast Fillet of Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with bread crumbs, salt pork, pepper, salt, and marjoram, roasted and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Fillet of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the veal.

  2. Fill the cavity with a stuffing made of bread crumbs, chopped salt pork, pepper, salt, and sweet marjoram.

  3. Make deep incisions in the veal.

  4. Fill the incisions with the stuffing or press strips of salt pork into each incision.

  5. If available, use a larding needle to insert strips of salt pork without cutting the veal.

  6. Bind the veal tightly with twine.

Roast

  1. Place the veal in a roasting pan with a little water.

  2. Roast the veal in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting often until thoroughly cooked.

Make the gravy

  1. Make gravy in the dripping pan after pouring off the fat.

  2. Add broth or water if needed.

  3. Season the gravy with pepper and salt.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

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. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together883 recipes

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

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the roast, cooked until tender and thoroughly done.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, keeping the filling moist and binding it together.
Salt pork
Adds fat that bastes the lean veal from within and contributes savory flavor.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Basting the veal often while roasting. Veal is lean and can dry out in the oven. Frequent basting with the pan juices keeps the surface moist and carries fat and flavor over the meat as it cooks through.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, pork, pepper, flour):

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pork, pepper, 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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