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Spiced Veal

A spiced veal loaf made with crackers, egg, and butter, baked slowly until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Veal

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 the mixture

  1. Chop the veal finely.

  2. Season the veal with salt, pepper, cloves, and cinnamon.

  3. Roll out the crackers.

  4. Add the crackers to the veal mixture.

  5. Add the egg and butter and mix everything thoroughly.

Bake the loaf

  1. Press the mixture into a baking tin.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2.5 hours.

  3. Allow to cool completely.

  4. Slice for serving.

Shape and finish

  1. Shape the mixture into rolls.

  2. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the bulk and protein that set into the loaf's sliceable body as it bakes.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and moisture from the meat, helping the loaf hold together.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it sets firm rather than crumbling when sliced.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the loaf moist and tender during baking.

The step that matters

Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 2.5 hours. A low, long bake lets the meat proteins and egg set gently through the loaf. Higher heat can tighten the proteins quickly and leave the center dry or uneven.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, clove, egg, 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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