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Veal Olives

Veal Olives are veal slices rolled with a breadcrumb mixture, baked and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Olives

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 olives

  1. Cut veal fillet into ½ inch thick and 4 inch square slices.

  2. In a bowl, mix chopped veal, stale bread crumbs, mace, pepper, salt, sweet herbs, butter, and egg until well combined.

  3. Lay the dressing on the veal slices, then sew or skewer them tightly to form olives.

  4. Lard the olives with salt pork and place them in a baking pan with hot water.

Bake and make the gravy

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about one hour, basting with flour frequently.

  2. To make the gravy, melt butter in a pan, add flour, mace, pepper, and salt, then stir in white wine if desired.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil and pour it over the olives when serving.

Garnish and serve

  1. Garnish with parsley and lemon.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the wrapper that holds the filling together and provides the main meaty texture.
Chopped veal
Gives the filling a binding, tender body that holds its shape when rolled and cooked.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the filling stay soft and cohesive instead of watery.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when the olives are rolled and baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that keeps the filling and gravy tender and flavourful.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the olives smoothly.

The step that matters

Sewing or skewering the olives tightly. If the rolls are loose, the filling can leak or fall out during baking. Tight rolls keep the filling inside and help the olives hold their shape as the egg sets.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

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