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Veal Cake

A layered veal cake with bacon, eggs, parsley, lemon zest, and stock, baked slowly in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a mold.

  2. Arrange some egg slices in a pattern on the bottom.

  3. Mix parsley, lemon zest, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

Layer and bake

  1. Cover the bottom of the mold with a thick layer of veal.

  2. Add a thin layer of bacon.

  3. Add a few slices of egg.

  4. Sprinkle with seasoning.

  5. Repeat layers until the mold is full.

  6. Pour in warm stock.

  7. Cover with greased paper.

  8. Place the mold in a tin with water.

  9. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for about 3 hours.

  10. Add more hot stock after removing from the oven.

Cool and serve

  1. Let cool.

  2. Turn out of the mold.

  3. Garnish with parsley.

  4. Serve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  5. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 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 becomes tender during slow baking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that moistens the lean veal as it cooks.
Eggs
Set when baked, holding the slices together and giving the cake structure.
Stock
Adds moisture and body, and gelatin from the stock helps the cake set when cooled.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Placing the mold in a tin of water gives gentle, even heat, so the lean veal stays moist rather than drying and toughening at the oven's full heat.

“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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