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Veal Loaf

A loaf made from veal, salt pork, eggs, herbs, and cracker crumbs, baked and basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Loaf

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).

Mix and shape

  1. In a large bowl, combine the veal, salt pork, eggs, salt, pepper, parsley, sweet herbs, and cracker crumbs. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  2. Shape the mixture into a loaf and place it in a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours, basting with butter occasionally.

  2. Allow to cool before slicing.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 its meaty texture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and moisture so the lean veal stays juicy as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the loaf while keeping it tender.

The step that matters

Allow to cool before slicing. Cooling lets the proteins and fats firm up and the juices settle, so the loaf holds together cleanly instead of crumbling or releasing liquid when cut.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

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