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Scallops of Cold Veal

A dish of minced cold veal seasoned with nutmeg, pepper, salt, and cream, baked in scallop shells with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scallops of Cold Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cold veal extremely small.

  2. Combine the minced veal with a scrape of nutmeg, a little black pepper, coarse sea salt, and a little heavy cream.

  3. Heat the mixture for a few minutes.

Fill and brown

  1. Place the mixture into scallop shells.

  2. Fill the shells with bread crumbs and top with bits of butter.

  3. Brown the shells before the fire until golden.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Nutmeg + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold veal
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it a tender, meaty texture when cooked.
Heavy cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the minced veal from drying out as it heats.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns in the heat.
Butter
Adds fat that melts over the crumbs, helping them brown golden.

The step that matters

Brown the shells before the fire until golden. Browning depends on surface heat reaching the crumbs and butter quickly. Too little heat leaves the topping pale and dry, while too much can scorch the crumbs before the veal is heated through.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, cream, bread, butter):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, cream, bread, 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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