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Timbales of Veal

A baked dish of veal and chicken liver mixture served in pastry cups with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Timbales of Veal

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Trim the skin from the veal and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Pound the veal pieces in a mortar.

  3. Fry the chicken livers in bacon fat, then drain and pound them.

  4. Mix the pounded livers with the veal, season with spices, pepper, and salt, and pass through a fine sieve.

  5. Stir in the chopped cooked ham.

Line and bake

  1. Butter small dariole moulds and line them with short pastry.

  2. Fill the moulds with the mixture and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  3. Remove from the oven and level the contents to the height of the moulds.

Assemble and serve

  1. Take the timbales out of the moulds, pour in thick sauce, and cover with baked puff pastry lids.

  2. Arrange on a hot dish 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. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Veal + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-butanedione (buttery, creamy).

  3. Chicken + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,497 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main body and mild meaty structure of the filling once pounded and sieved.
Chicken livers
Add richness and a smooth, fine texture to the filling after frying and pounding.
Cooked ham
Adds a salty, savoury flavour and firmer bite to the filling.
Short pastry
Forms the crisp, sturdy case that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Pounding and sieving the filling. Pounding the veal and livers and then passing the mixture through a fine sieve makes it smooth and fine-grained. Skipping this leaves lumps and a coarse texture that will not set evenly in the moulds.

“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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