Name: Moulded Veal or Veal Cake
Ingredients: Slices of cold roast veal; Some gravy; Slices of ham; 2 sprigs of parsley, chopped fine; 3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced; Pepper, to taste; Salt, to taste; Butter, for greasing the mould; Good stock, to fill the mould

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Moulded Veal or Veal Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Remove the skin from the veal and cut it into thin slices.
Chop the parsley finely and slice the hard-boiled eggs.
Butter a nicely shaped mould.

Assemble and bake

Place a few slices of egg at the bottom of the mould at equal distances.
Layer the veal, ham, eggs, and parsley inside the mould, seasoning each layer with pepper and salt.
Fill the mould with good stock.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours.

Serve

Once cooled, turn it out of the mould.
Serve on a folded napkin, garnished with carrot and turnip flowers and a little parsley.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28,563 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal: Forms the main body of the cake and provides the meaty texture once sliced.
Eggs: Set when baked, holding the slices together and adding firmness and richness.
Good stock: Moistens the layers and sets to a jelly as the cake cools, binding it together.
Ham: Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer texture between the veal layers.

The step that matters

Filling the mould with stock. Stock must fill the gaps between layers so the cake holds together and sets firm when cooled; air pockets can make it crumble when turned out.

“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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Moulded Veal or Veal Cake