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Bombarded Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with a forcemeat mixture, baked and served with a sauce of mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, artichokes, morels, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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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

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

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

  3. Fill the cavity where the bone was with the forcemeat.

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

  5. Fill the cuts with forcemeat, boiled and squeezed spinach, and a mixture of bread crumbs, chopped oysters, and beef marrow.

Bake

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

  2. Make a coarse paste to cover the pot to prevent any unpleasant taste from the oven.

  3. After baking, skim off the fat and transfer the gravy to a stewpan.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, artichoke quarters, browning, morels, and truffles to the gravy.

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

  3. 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, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a soft, light body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the forcemeat, keeping it tender.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style paste that thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Bacon
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and flavourful during baking.

The step that matters

Sealing the pot with the coarse paste. The paste must fully enclose the pot so steam and cooking juices stay in and the veal cooks gently and moistly, without picking up off-flavours from the oven.

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.

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