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Bombarded Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat, baked, and served with a sauce of mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Bombarded Veal

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 the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing the bread crumb, bacon, anchovies, marjoram, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, egg, and cream.

  3. Fill the cavity of the fillet with the forcemeat.

  4. Make cuts around the fillet about an inch apart.

  5. Fill some cuts with forcemeat, fill some cuts with boiled and squeezed spinach, and fill other cuts with bread crumbs, chopped oysters, and beef marrow.

Bake

  1. Wrap the fillet in caul fat and place it in a deep pot with 1 pint of water.

  2. Make a coarse paste to cover the pot to prevent unpleasant flavors.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until cooked through.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. After baking, skim off the fat and transfer the gravy to a saucepan.

  2. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, artichoke quarters, browning sauce, morels, and truffles to the gravy.

  3. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour and bring to a gentle boil.

  4. Serve the veal on a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into tender, moist slices.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when the fillet is cut and cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a soft, binding texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and moisture to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing from drying out.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Browning sauce
Darkens the gravy and adds a deeper, savoury colour.

The step that matters

Sealing the pot with the coarse paste. The paste lid traps steam and heat so the veal cooks gently and evenly in its own juices; a gap lets flavour escape and the dish dry out.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, marjoram, lemon, thyme, 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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