Skip to main content
Main

Veal Cake, to Be Eaten Cold

A chilled veal cake made with roasted veal, ham or bacon, bread crumbs, eggs, butter, shallot or onion, pepper, and salt.

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

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 ↓

Veal Cake, to Be Eaten Cold

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the cold roasted lean veal in a mortar until fine.

  2. Add the slice of ham or bacon, soaked bread crumb, beaten eggs, butter, shallot or onion, pepper, and salt, and mix all ingredients well.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a small mold and fill it with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1 hour.

  3. Let it cool, then turn it out and cut into slices.

  4. Garnish with pickled eggs and parsley.

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

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when baked, holding the cake together in slices.
Bread crumb soaked in cold milk
Adds moisture and a tender texture by keeping the mixture from drying out as it bakes.
Lean veal
Forms the main body of the cake, giving it its meaty base and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Let it cool before turning it out. Egg-set mixtures are still soft when hot and can crumble or tear. Letting the cake cool allows the proteins to firm up so it holds its shape when unmolded and sliced.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, milk, egg, butter, pepper. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes