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Veal Pates- Mrs. N. Baird

A dish of finely chopped cold veal mixed with cream, egg, seasonings, breaded and fried or baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Pates- Mrs. N. Baird

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold veal finely.

  2. Moisten the veal with cream and the beaten egg.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt, sweet marjoram, and powdered mace.

  4. Shape the mixture into cones or patty-cakes using your hands.

Coat and cook

  1. Roll the shaped pates in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in a buttered pan or bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Marjoram + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together767 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Marjoram + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold veal
Forms the main body of the pates and gives them a meaty texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture tender when cooked.
Egg
Binds the chopped veal so the pates hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer coating when fried or baked.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting browning and a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Shape and coat before cooking. The mixture is soft and wet from the cream and egg, so it must be shaped firmly and coated in crumbs before cooking. Otherwise it may break apart or stick, and the crumbs help form a crust that holds the pates together while they brown.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cream, egg, mace, bread, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, egg, mace, bread, butter. 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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