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Veal Loaf

A baked loaf of finely chopped veal, salt pork, eggs, and crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 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. Chop the veal and salt pork very fine.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, beaten eggs, crushed crackers, and remaining ingredients.

  3. Press the mixture hard into a pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

  2. Slice thin, garnish with parsley, and serve cold.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 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 + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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 main body of the loaf, providing the meaty texture when sliced.
Eggs
Bind the meat and crumbs together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Boston crackers
Soak up moisture and help bind the mixture, keeping the loaf tender.
Salt pork
Adds fat, which keeps the lean veal moist and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Press the mixture hard into the pudding dish. Firm packing removes air pockets and helps the eggs and crumbs bind the meat, so the loaf holds together when sliced thin.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, egg, pepper):

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

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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