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Veal Loaf

A loaf of finely chopped veal mixed with salt pork, crackers, eggs, pepper, salt, and thyme, baked and served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 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).

Make and bake the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the veal, salt pork, rolled crackers, beaten eggs, pepper, salt, and thyme.

  2. Press the mixture firmly into a dish.

  3. Bake for 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Slice and serve cold for tea.

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 + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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 + thymetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf, giving it a firm, sliceable texture when cooked.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist and adds savoury flavour during baking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Boston crackers
Absorb liquid and add body, helping the loaf stay tender and hold together.

The step that matters

Press the mixture firmly into a dish. Packing the mixture well removes air pockets and helps the egg and cracker binder hold the meat together, so the cooked loaf slices cleanly instead of crumbling.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

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