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Roast Fillet of Veal

A veal fillet roasted with bacon, gravy, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Fillet of Veal

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the bacon into thin slices and tie it around the meat, securing it with skewers.

  2. Place the joint in a double roasting pan and pour ½ cup of melted dripping over it.

Roast

  1. Half fill the lower pan with water and roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven, basting every 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. After 2 hours, remove the bacon, sprinkle the veal with pepper and salt, and dredge with flour.

  3. Continue roasting for 1 hour, basting frequently.

  4. Once cooked, place the veal on a hot dish and garnish with small rolls of bacon and lemon slices.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the gravy from the pan into a saucepan, skim off the fat, and add enough gravy stock or boiling water to make ½ cup.

  2. Stir well, bring to a boil, and pour around the joint.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, sliceable joint.
Bacon
Wrapped around the meat, it adds fat and moisture to keep the lean veal juicy.
Dripping
Melted fat that coats the joint, promoting even browning and a rich flavour.
Flour
Dredged over the surface, it helps the meat brown and thickens the pan juices into gravy.

The step that matters

Basting during the roast. Regular basting with fat keeps the surface from drying out and encourages even browning, which keeps the lean veal moist and flavourful.

“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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