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Jellied Veal

Jellied Veal is a chilled veal aspic made by boiling, seasoning, and setting with butter and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Jellied Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Boil the veal until tender and chop it finely.

  2. Place the chopped veal in a mold.

  3. Add the water it was boiled in to the mold.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Optionally, add a layer of hard‑boiled eggs for improvement.

  6. If the veal is lean, add butter and cream.

  7. Form the mixture into a large roll.

Bake and serve

  1. Dot the roll with bits of butter.

  2. Sprinkle pounded crackers over the roll.

  3. Mix some crackers with the meat.

  4. Place the roll in the oven.

  5. Add a little water occasionally while baking.

  6. Cook slowly for 2 hours.

  7. Once the roll is cold, slice it thinly.

  8. Serve the slices as a relish.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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
Forms the bulk of the roll and gives it its meaty body and texture.
Eggs
Set when hard-boiled and add structure and firmness to the sliced roll.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the lean meat moist and flavorful.
Crackers
Bind the meat and absorb liquid, helping the roll hold its shape and browning on top.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, softening the lean veal.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. Slow, gentle heat with added water keeps the lean meat from drying and toughening, and lets the cooled roll set firmly enough to slice thinly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

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