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Veal Cake

A veal roast stuffed with a forcemeat mixture of veal, suet, herbs, truffles, mushrooms, shallots, and lemon peel, then roasted and glazed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Chop the veal, beef suet or marrow, parsley, thyme, green truffles, mushrooms, shallots, and lemon peel finely.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and beaten allspice.

  3. Pound the mixture in a mortar with the yolks of two eggs and a little French bread soaked in cream.

Stuff and roast

  1. Fill the cavity of the veal with the forcemeat and cover it with a piece of caul.

  2. Tie it closed and roast gently.

Brown and serve

  1. Once done, remove the caul to brown the meat, glaze lightly, and serve with white sauce.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced.
French bread soaked in cream
Adds moisture and softness to the forcemeat stuffing.
Beef suet or marrow
Adds richness and fat, keeping the lean stuffing moist during roasting.
Caul
Wraps the stuffed veal, basting it with its fat while it roasts.
Green truffles
Contribute a earthy, aromatic flavor to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Removing the caul to brown the meat. The caul's fat keeps the veal moist while roasting, but browning needs direct dry heat on the surface. Removing the caul at the end lets the meat colour and develop savoury flavour rather than staying pale and soft.

“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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