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Veal Loaf

A baked loaf made from finely chopped veal, salt pork, eggs, butter, crackers, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, combine the veal, salt pork, eggs, melted butter, rolled crackers, black pepper, salt, extract of celery, and sage.

  3. Pack the mixture tightly into a deep pan.

  4. Sprinkle the top with rolled cracker and lay bits of butter on top.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Cover the pan and bake for 2 hours.

  3. Uncover and bake until nicely browned.

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. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Celery + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together723 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 provides the main meaty texture when cooked through.
Salt pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the lean veal from drying out during baking.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and set during baking to hold the loaf together.
Boston crackers
Absorb liquid and fat and help give the loaf a firm, sliceable structure.
Melted butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown during the uncovered baking.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture tightly into a deep pan. Loose packing leaves air pockets that can make the loaf crumble when sliced. Firm packing helps the eggs and crackers bind the meat into a cohesive loaf.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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