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Little Veal Rolls

Small veal rolls seasoned with salt pork, breadcrumbs, and spices, then browned and simmered in a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Little Veal Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut veal slices from the leg as thinly as possible, about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Pound the veal slices gently if they are thicker than ¼ inch.

  3. Trim the veal, removing fat, skin, and bone.

  4. Cut the trimmed veal into strips about 2 inches wide and 4 inches long.

Make and roll the filling

  1. Chop any leftover trimmings and mix with 2 ounces of chopped salt pork for every 5 rolls.

  2. Add ½ cup bread crumbs, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon lemon juice, ¼ teaspoon onion juice, 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning, and pepper to the mixture.

  3. Moisten the mixture with water or a mixture of water and egg.

  4. Cover each veal strip with the mixture, avoiding the edges.

  5. Roll the veal strip tightly and tie with string.

Brown and braise

  1. Heat butter or drippings in a skillet.

  2. Brown the rolls evenly on all sides.

  3. Transfer the rolls to a saucepan with a secure cover.

  4. Add enough butter or drippings to make 3 tablespoons.

  5. Stir in 3 tablespoons of flour and mix well.

  6. Add 1½ cups of stock or water and stir until bubbling.

  7. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and pepper to taste.

  8. Pour the sauce over the rolls, cover, and simmer gently for about 1 hour until tender.

Serve

  1. Carefully lift the rolls from the saucepan, remove the strings, and arrange on a platter.

  2. Strain the sauce and pour it over the rolls.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the wrapper, and slow simmering in liquid turns it tender.
Salt pork
Adds fat and richness to the filling, keeping it moist during cooking.
Bread crumbs
Soak up moisture and help bind the filling so it holds inside the roll.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat for browning the rolls and enriching the sauce.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the veal tightly. A loose roll can open or let filling escape during browning and simmering. Tight rolling and secure string keep the filling enclosed and the roll in one piece.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, bread, lemon, parsley, pepper, egg. 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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