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Veal Patties

Veal patties made from stewed veal, salt pork, celery, and a flaky crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Veal Patties

Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal stew

  1. Combine veal and salt pork in a pot.

  2. Stew gently for 10-15 minutes.

  3. Season the stew with pepper, salt, celery, and yellow top.

  4. Stir in flour, egg yolk, and milk to form a thin batter.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil; it is ready for the patties.

Assemble and serve

  1. Make a flaky crust using flour, butter, and water.

  2. Roll out and cut into rounds the size of small saucers.

  3. Cut the center of each round halfway through to create a cover.

  4. Place a spoonful of the stew in each crust.

  5. Cover with the top.

  6. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat body that becomes tender during gentle stewing.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the stew as it cooks.
Egg yolk
Enriches the batter and helps bind it to a smooth, thickened texture.
Flour
Thickens the stew and batter so the filling holds together in the crust.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter, softening its texture.
Butter
Creates layers of fat in the crust that separate into a flaky texture.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil. Flour needs to be heated fully to thicken the batter and cook out its raw starch taste. Stopping too early leaves the filling thin and pasty.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, pepper, flour, egg, milk, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, pepper, flour, egg, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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