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To Dress Cold Veal

A boiled cold veal meatloaf seasoned with nutmeg, lemon, and spices, topped with egg yolk and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Dress Cold Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Finely mince the fat and lean of cold roast veal.

  2. Season with grated nutmeg, lemon peel, white pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Moisten with a little rich white stock and a beaten egg.

Cook

  1. Butter a pudding shape and press the mince firmly into it.

  2. Cover closely and set in a pan of boiling water.

  3. Boil for 1 to 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Sift bread crumbs thickly over the top and brown in a Dutch oven.

  2. Rub the top with beaten egg yolk, or serve with a thickened white gravy.

  3. Baste with melted butter and garnish with fried parsley or cut lemon.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + white peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 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 roast veal
Forms the main body of the loaf, and its fat keeps the mince moist as it cooks.
Beaten egg
Binds the minced meat so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the top of the loaf.
Rich white stock
Adds moisture so the mince stays tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Pressing the mince into the mould. Packing the mince firmly removes air pockets and helps the loaf hold together when it is turned out and sliced.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, nutmeg, lemon, egg, butter, bread, parsley):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, lemon, egg, butter, bread, parsley. 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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