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Veal Olives

Veal olives are veal strips rolled with bacon, egg, and breadcrumbs, then roasted and served with brown gravy.

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 ↓

Veal Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut very thin slices from a fillet of veal, free from the bone, creating long strips.

  2. Dip each slice in the yolk of an egg.

  3. Cut fat bacon into thin slices and lay it on the veal.

  4. Egg the bacon and add a little veal force-meat on top.

  5. Roll it up tightly and sew with strong thread, leaving a large knot.

Coat and roast

  1. Rub each olive with egg and roll in seasoned bread crumbs.

  2. Place them on a spit and roast before a brisk fire for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

  3. Serve with brown gravy.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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

Fillet of veal
Forms the thin outer wrapping and provides the main meat structure of each roll.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that bastes the lean veal, keeping the rolls moist and flavourful as they roast.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder that helps the veal slices and bread crumbs stick together.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating on the rolls during roasting.

The step that matters

Roll tightly and tie securely. Loose rolls can unwind during roasting, letting the filling escape. Tight rolls with strong thread keep the bacon and force-meat inside as the meat shrinks and firms in the heat.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, bread, 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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