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Veal Olives

Veal olives are veal slices rolled with bacon and forcemeat, simmered in brown sauce and served over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Veal Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal and bacon into pieces about 4 inches long and 3 inches wide.

  2. Place a slice of bacon on each piece of veal and spread a thin layer of forcemeat on top.

  3. Roll up the veal tightly and secure with twine.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter or fat in a stewpan and add the veal olives.

  2. Fry until lightly browned, then pour away the fat.

  3. Add the hot brown sauce, cover, and simmer gently for 1.5 to 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the strings, arrange the olives on mashed potatoes, and strain the sauce over.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the tender outer wrap that holds the filling together when rolled.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the veal as it cooks.
Veal forcemeat
Provides a moist, savoury filling that keeps the rolls juicy during slow cooking.
Brown sauce
Supplies liquid for slow simmering, building flavour and a rich glossy sauce.
Butter or good fat
Carries heat for browning the rolls and adds richness to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the olives tightly. Loose rolls can open during frying and simmering, letting filling escape and the veal cook unevenly. Tight rolling and secure twine keep each olive intact through the long gentle simmer.

“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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