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Bombarded Veal

A boned veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat and other fillings, baked in a coarse paste, and served with a gravy of mushrooms, morels and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Bombarded Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

  3. Make a forcemeat by mixing bread crumbs, bacon, anchovy, marjoram, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, egg, and cream.

  4. Fill the cavity of the fillet with the forcemeat.

  5. Make cuts around the fillet about 1 inch apart.

  6. Fill some cuts with forcemeat, others with boiled and squeezed spinach, and others with bread crumbs, chopped oysters, and beef marrow.

  7. Wrap the fillet in caul fat and place it in a deep pot with 1 pint of water.

  8. Make a coarse paste to cover the fillet to prevent it from absorbing unpleasant flavors.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake in the oven until cooked through.

  2. Skim off the fat from the gravy and transfer it to a saucepan.

  3. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, artichoke quarters, browning sauce, morels, and truffles to the gravy.

  4. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour and bring to a gentle boil.

  5. Place the veal in a serving dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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 and carries the stuffing as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the forcemeat so it holds together while baking.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat, helping it set firm as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and moisture to the forcemeat, keeping the lean veal from drying out.
Morels
Add earthy, savoury aroma to the sauce.
Truffles
Add a rich, earthy aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Wrapping and coating the fillet before baking. The caul fat and coarse flour paste protect the veal from drying out and from absorbing unwanted flavours in the oven. Gaps or thin spots let moisture escape, so the meat can turn dry while the stuffing is still underdone.

“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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