Skip to main content
Main

Veal Shape

A veal stew with lemon rind, ham, and hard‑boiled eggs, set in a molded shape.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Stew the veal with the thin rind of the lemon in a small amount of water until tender.

  2. Cut the veal and ham into small pieces, mince the lemon rind finely, and set aside to cool.

  3. Strain the stock, add the lemon juice and seasonings, and let it cool.

Set and serve

  1. Slice the hard-boiled eggs and arrange them in a mold or dish.

  2. Pour the cooled stock and meat over the eggs and set aside until completely cold.

  3. Once cold, turn out the dish whole.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat and, as it stews, gelatin that lets the stock set firm when cold.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma to the stock, with the rind flavoring and the juice seasoning it.
Hard-boiled eggs
Provide firm, sliced structure and a mild richness that contrasts with the clear, tangy stock.
Ham
Adds savory, salty meat flavor that carries through the cold stock.

The step that matters

Let the stock set completely cold before turning out. The clear stock sets into a firm jelly only as it cools fully, because gelatin from the stewed veal gels when chilled. Turning out too early makes the dish collapse.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes