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Veal Omelette

A baked loaf of finely chopped veal, onion, crackers, sage, salt, and egg, basted with butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and sage are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,628 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Veal Omelette

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Shape the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, mix the veal, onion, rolled crackers, sage, salt, and raw egg until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into a loaf shape.

Bake

  1. Place the loaf in a baking dish and bake for 2 hours.

  2. Baste the loaf with a mixture of butter and water periodically during baking.

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. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 loaf and provides the meaty texture.
Raw egg
Binds the meat and crackers so the loaf holds its shape while baking.
Rolled crackers
Absorb moisture and help keep the loaf tender rather than dense.
Onion
Adds savory flavor and moisture to the meat mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for browning and richness on the baked surface.

The step that matters

Basting during baking. Basting with butter and water at intervals keeps the surface from drying out and helps it brown evenly. Lean meat loses moisture quickly in a long, dry-heat bake, so skipping this can leave the loaf dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sage, egg, 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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