Skip to main content
Main

Bombarded Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with a forcemeat of breadcrumbs, bacon, anchovy, herbs, and other ingredients, baked and served with a rich sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 25 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Bombarded Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing the bread crumbs, bacon, anchovy, marjoram, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, egg, and cream.

  3. Fill the cavity left by the bone with the forcemeat.

  4. Make cuts around the fillet about 1 inch apart.

  5. Fill some cuts with forcemeat, others with spinach, and the rest with a mixture of bread crumbs, oysters, and beef marrow.

  6. Wrap the caul tightly around the fillet and place it in a deep pot with 1 pint of water.

  7. Make a coarse paste to cover the pot to prevent unpleasant flavors.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked through.

  2. Remove from the oven, skim off the fat, and transfer the gravy to a saucepan.

  3. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, artichokes, browning sauce, morels, and truffles to the gravy.

  4. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour and bring to a gentle boil.

  5. Place the veal in a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through as the centrepiece.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced and cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a light, soft body.
Bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and richly flavoured during baking.
Butter
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce when rolled in flour.
Morels
Contribute earthy, savoury aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Make the coarse paste cover tightly. The paste seals the pot so the veal cooks in its own steam and gravy without drying out or losing flavour. A gap lets moisture escape and the meat dries.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, anchovy, marjoram, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, anchovy, marjoram, lemon, thyme, parsley, 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.

More stuffed veal fillet recipes

with Bacon 7 See all 27 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipes