Name: Stuffing for Veal
Ingredients: ¼ pound beef suet or marrow, minced; ¼ pound bread crumbs; 2 teaspoons parsley leaves, minced; 1½ teaspoons sweet marjoram or lemon thyme; 1½ teaspoons grated lemon peel; 1½ teaspoons onion, finely chopped; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 eggs

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffing for Veal

Ingredients

¼ pound beef suet or marrow, minced
¼ pound bread crumbs
2 teaspoons parsley leaves, minced
1½ teaspoons sweet marjoram or lemon thyme
1½ teaspoons grated lemon peel
1½ teaspoons onion, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
2 eggs

Directions

In a bowl, combine minced beef suet or marrow, bread crumbs, parsley, marjoram or thyme, lemon peel, onion, pepper, and salt.
Pound the mixture thoroughly with the yolk and white of the eggs.
Stuff the mixture into the veal and secure it with a skewer or sew it with thread.

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.

Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,979 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together957 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture together and help it hold its shape when stuffed.
Bread crumbs: Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Beef suet or marrow: Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist as it cooks.

Swap the onion

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

Carrotfits better
Shallotfits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, marjoram, lemon, 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.