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Spiced Veal

A baked veal loaf seasoned with salt, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and bound with crackers, egg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spiced Veal

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. Chop the veal finely and season with salt, pepper, cloves, and cinnamon.

  2. Add the rolled crackers, egg, and butter; mix thoroughly.

  3. Press the mixture into a baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2.5 hours.

  2. Let it cool completely, then slice for serving.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,890 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main body and meaty texture of the loaf.
Egg
Binds the meat and sets during baking to hold the loaf together.
Rolled crackers
Absorb juices and add moisture, helping keep the loaf tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the meat moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Let it cool completely before slicing. Cooling lets the proteins and fats firm up and the juices redistribute, so the loaf holds its shape when cut instead of crumbling.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, clove, egg, 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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