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Veal Loaf

A loaf of ground veal mixed with salt pork, breadcrumbs, eggs, stock, lemon, parsley, capers, and seasonings, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Loaf

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. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Mix and shape

  1. In a large bowl, mix the veal, salt pork, bread crumbs, eggs, stock, lemon juice and rind, parsley, capers, pepper, and salt until well combined.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a loaf pan and smooth the top.

  3. Sprinkle a layer of bread crumbs on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven for 3 hours.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + caperstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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 meaty, tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firmly as it bakes.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and keep the loaf moist and tender while it cooks.
Salt pork
Adds fat and richness, keeping the lean veal moist during long baking.
Stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the loaf.

The step that matters

Baking at a low temperature. Veal is very lean, so cooking it slowly at a low temperature helps keep the loaf moist and prevents the proteins from tightening and drying out.

Swap the capers

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Capersthe original

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