Skip to main content
Main

Veal-gaxe for a Side Dish

A layered casserole of hard‑boiled eggs, veal, ham, and gravy baked with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Veal-gaxe for a Side Dish

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. Boil the eggs until hard, then cut the yolks in half.

  2. Butter a pot or mold.

Layer

  1. Layer some egg pieces in the bottom, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  2. Add slices of veal and ham, seasoning between each layer.

  3. Repeat layering with eggs and meat until the mold is full.

  4. Pour in enough gravy to reach the top of the meat.

  5. Spread 1 ounce of butter over the top.

Bake and cool

  1. Cover with double paper and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

  2. Press down with a spoon and let it cool completely.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Egg + hamtop 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

Eggs
Form the body of the casserole and add richness and a firm, sliceable texture.
Veal
Provides the main meat layers, which turn tender through slow, moist baking in gravy.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavor that seasons the layers between the eggs and veal.
Gravy
Supplies moisture that keeps the meat juicy during baking and fills the spaces between layers.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and browning on the top layer as it bakes.

The step that matters

Press down with a spoon and let it cool completely. Pressing compacts the layers so they bind together, and full cooling lets the gravy set so the casserole slices cleanly instead of crumbling.

“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

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes