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Veal Forcemeat

A mixture of finely chopped veal, bread crumbs, gravy, egg yolk, and butter, formed into a paste for stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove sinew from the veal and chop it finely.

  2. Pound the veal until it forms a fine paste.

Make the bread panada

  1. Soak the bread crumb in the veal gravy or white sauce.

  2. Press and drain the soaked bread to remove moisture.

  3. Heat the bread mixture over low heat until dry and it forms a ball.

  4. Mix in the egg yolk while the mixture is still hot.

Combine

  1. Once cooled, combine with the veal and add the fresh butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  3. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White veal
Provides the main lean protein that forms the body of the forcemeat.
Stale bread crumb
Absorbs liquid and helps bind the mixture so it stays tender rather than dense.
Veal gravy or white sauce
Adds moisture and flavour that the bread soaks up before being dried.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder that helps the mixture set and hold together when cooked.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Heat the bread mixture until dry and it forms a ball. If the bread is not dried enough, excess moisture makes the forcemeat loose and weak. Adding the egg yolk while the mixture is still hot helps it combine smoothly, but the mixture must be cooled before joining the veal so the yolk does not scramble and the butter does not melt out.

“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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