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Veal Eggs in a Nest a LA Turin

Fried balls of minced cold veal bound with egg, served on buttered spaghetti with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Eggs in a Nest a LA Turin

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meatballs

  1. Mince the cold veal and season it to taste.

  2. Wet the veal slightly with gravy.

  3. Add the minced almonds or champignons and bind the mixture with a beaten egg.

  4. Stir over heat for 1 minute and let cool.

  5. Flour your hands and form the mixture into egg-sized balls.

  6. Chill the balls.

  7. Roll the balls in egg and cracker crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the balls in deep fat until golden.

  2. Arrange boiled spaghetti on a platter and butter it.

  3. Pour the strained tomato sauce over the spaghetti.

  4. Heap the fried veal balls in the center and serve.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Almond + tomatotop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together391 recipes

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

  5. Veal + tomatotop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together709 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Cold veal
Forms the main body of the meatballs and gives them their meaty flavor.
Egg
Binds the minced mixture so the balls hold their shape.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns when fried.
Strained tomato sauce
Adds moisture and acidity that complements the meatballs and spaghetti.
Spaghetti
Serves as the base that holds the sauce and meatballs.

The step that matters

Chill the balls before frying. Chilling firms the bound mixture and the egg and crumb coating, so the balls keep their shape and do not fall apart in hot fat.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, almond, egg, flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Welsh onionfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, almond, egg, flour, sauce. 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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