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Veal Cake

A layered veal, bacon, egg, and parsley cake baked in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal and bacon into small dice.

  2. Slice the hard-boiled eggs into sections.

  3. Arrange some egg slices in a pattern on the bottom of a buttered mold.

  4. Mix the parsley, lemon rind, salt, and pepper together.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover the bottom of the mold with a thick layer of veal.

  2. Add a thin layer of bacon on top, followed by a few slices of egg and sprinkle with seasoning.

  3. Repeat the layers until the mold is full.

  4. Pour in the warm stock and cover with greased paper.

  5. Place the mold in a tin filled with water and bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 3 hours.

  6. Add more hot stock as soon as the mold is taken out of the oven.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, turn out of the mold, garnish with parsley, and serve.

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

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the cake and becomes tender and moist during slow baking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the lean veal as it cooks.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide firm slices that set the layered pattern and add richness when cut.
Stock
Supplies moisture so the veal stays juicy and sets into a jelly-like glaze as it cools.

The step that matters

Adding hot stock after baking. Stock poured in while the mold is still hot fills the gaps left as the meat shrinks, keeping the cake moist and helping it hold together when cooled and turned 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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