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Baked Ravioles

A baked dish of veal, liver, sausage, marrow, spinach, curd cheese, eggs, and short pastry, topped with Parmesan and Gruyere.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 392 recipes. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Baked Ravioles

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 forcemeat

  1. Mince veal, calf's liver, sausage meat, and beef marrow or kidney fat very fine.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and mixed herbs; pound in a mortar.

  3. Add blanched, drained, and warmed spinach and squeezed curd cheese; pound again.

  4. Stir in yolks of two eggs and fold in whisked egg whites.

Assemble and poach

  1. Make short pastry and cut into small squares.

  2. Wet edges, place a little forcemeat in the center, and fold over.

  3. Poach in boiling stock for five minutes, then drain.

Bake and serve

  1. Place on a dish, sprinkle with Parmesan and Gruyere, moisten with stock, and brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Serve very hot.

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. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 forcemeat, giving the filling its substance and meaty texture.
Calf's liver
Adds depth and a rich, savoury flavour to the forcemeat filling.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat together, and the whisked whites lighten its texture.
Curd cheese
Adds moisture and softness to the forcemeat filling.
Beef marrow or calf's kidney fat
Contributes fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and tender during cooking.
Gruyere cheese
Melts and browns on top in the oven, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Folding the pastry edges shut. Wetting the edges before folding helps the pastry seal, so the forcemeat stays inside during poaching and baking instead of leaking into the stock.

Swap the spinach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, liver, meat, beef, pepper, cheese, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, liver, meat, beef, pepper, cheese, egg. 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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