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Veal Florentine

A veal kidney dish with parsley, herbs, apple, candied orange peel, currants, spices, sugar, wine, orange‑flower water, baked in puff pastry.

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 Florentine

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 the filling

  1. Mince the veal kidney and surrounding fat.

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

  3. Mix the minced veal, chopped ingredients, hard-boiled egg yolks, currants, biscuits, spices, sugar, mountain wine, and orange-flower water in a bowl.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay a sheet of puff pastry at the bottom and around a dish.

  2. Fill the dish with the mixture and cover with a pastry lid, garnishing the edges.

  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 meat body of the filling, giving it its rich, savoury flavour and texture.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a soft, binding texture that holds the filling together.
Biscuits or bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the minced filling so it holds its shape.
Apple
Adds moisture and mild sweetness that balances the savoury meat.
Currants
Add sweetness and chewy bursts of fruit flavour throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the filling. The pastry must seal the filling fully so juices stay in and the crust can brown and crisp. Baking low and slow at 300°F helps the veal cook through gently without drying out or toughening.

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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