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Veal Loaf

A loaf of veal mixed with salt pork, crackers, eggs, and seasonings, baked and sliced thinly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 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).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the veal, salt pork, rolled crackers, eggs, pepper, salt, and sage.

  3. Shape the mixture into a loaf.

  4. Cover the outside of the loaf with some of the rolled cracker.

Bake and serve

  1. Baste the loaf with a mixture of water and butter while baking.

  2. Bake for about 3 hours.

  3. Slice thinly and serve cold.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it its meaty body.
Eggs
Bind the meat and crackers so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist during long baking.
Soda crackers
Absorb juices and help bind the mixture into a tender loaf.

The step that matters

Basting the loaf during the long bake. Veal is lean and the bake is long, so the surface can dry out. Basting with water and butter adds moisture and fat, helping keep the loaf juicy and encouraging gentle browning.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  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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