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Veal Loaf

A loaf of finely chopped veal mixed with salt pork, soda crackers, eggs, seasonings, rolled in flour and baked.

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 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).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the veal, salt pork, rolled soda crackers, beaten eggs, pepper, coarse sea salt, and sage until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture into a loaf and roll it in flour.

  2. Place the loaf in a baking dish and bake for 3 hours, basting frequently with melted butter.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it its meaty body.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist during baking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Soda crackers
Absorb moisture and help give the loaf a tender, cohesive texture.
Melted butter
Basting adds fat that promotes surface browning and moisture.

The step that matters

Basting the loaf during baking. Veal is very lean, so it dries out easily over a long bake. Frequent basting with melted butter adds fat and moisture to the surface, helping keep the loaf juicy and browned.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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