Name: Roast Veal
Ingredients: 1 fillet of veal (bone removed); Highly-seasoned bread stuffing; Thin strips of salt pork or lard; Flour; Coarse sea salt; Black pepper

Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Roast 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Stuff the fillet with the bread stuffing and skewer it into shape.
Cover the top of the fillet with strips of salt pork or lard using a larding needle.
Season the fillet with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Roast and serve

Roast for 25 minutes per pound.
Make gravy from the drippings in the pan.
Serve with horseradish if desired.

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.

Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,371 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,056 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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 roast, cooking to a tender, mild meat.
Bread stuffing: Adds moisture and flavour inside the fillet as it roasts.
Salt pork or lard: Bastes the lean veal with fat, keeping the surface moist and adding richness.
Flour: Helps the seasoning cling and contributes to browning on the surface.

“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.