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Veal Florencitic

A pastry filled with minced veal kidney, herbs, apple, candied orange peel, spices, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Veal Florencitic

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mince the veal kidney and surrounding fat.

  2. Chop the parsley, herbs, apple, and candied orange peel.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the minced veal with the chopped ingredients, egg yolks, currants, biscuits, spices, sugar, mountain wine, and orange-flower water.

  2. Line a dish with puff pastry, fill it with the mixture, and cover with a pastry lid.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until cooked through.

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. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Parsley + biscuittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + orangetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together680 recipes

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

  4. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal kidney
Forms the main meaty body of the filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set as it cooks.
Biscuits or bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling body and texture.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case and lid that encloses the filling.
Mountain wine
Adds acidity and moisture to the filling.
Apple
Adds moisture and a fresh, tart sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. The raw veal and egg yolks in the filling must reach a safe internal temperature, while the pastry needs enough heat to brown and crisp. Too low a heat or too short a bake leaves the filling undercooked inside a pale crust.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, apple, parsley, orange, egg, biscuit, mace):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, apple, parsley, orange, egg, biscuit, mace. 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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