Skip to main content
Main

Veal Olives

Veal Olives are rolled veal slices with bacon, forcemeat, shallot, cayenne pepper, beaten egg, fried and served with brown gravy and boiled mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut long, thin slices of veal.

  2. Beat the slices to tenderize them.

  3. Lay thin slices of fat bacon on each slice of veal.

  4. Spread a layer of seasoned forcemeat over the bacon.

  5. Add some chopped shallot and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Roll and cook

  1. Roll the slices tightly, about the size of two fingers and 2-3 inches long.

  2. Secure the rolls with small skewers.

  3. Brush the rolls with beaten egg.

  4. Fry the rolls until they are light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy and boiled mushrooms.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main meat wrapper, and beating thins and tenderizes its fibres.
Fat bacon
Melts during frying, adding moisture and savoury fat to the lean veal.
Forcemeat
Provides a seasoned, binding filling that keeps the roll moist as it cooks.
Egg
Brushed on the outside, it helps the rolls brown evenly when fried.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the finished plate alongside the gravy.

The step that matters

Securing the rolls before frying. If the rolls are not tightly rolled and skewered, the filling can leak out and the thin veal can open up in hot fat. Tight rolling keeps the forcemeat inside and the rolls holding their shape while they brown.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, egg, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, egg, mushroom. 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.

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes