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Veal Olives

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,263 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. 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 in a skillet, add the olives, and fry until lightly browned.

  2. Pour off the butter, add the hot brown sauce, cover, and simmer gently for 1 to 2 hours.

  3. Once cooked, remove the twine and arrange the olives in two rows on a bed of mashed potatoes.

  4. Strain the sauce over the olives.

  5. Arrange them in a circle with a vegetable puree in the center.

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 + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sauce + olivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 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 meat wrapper that holds the filling and cooks until soft during simmering.
Bacon
Adds fat that bastes the veal and flavours the sauce as it cooks.
Veal forcemeat
Provides a seasoned layer of filling that stays moist inside the rolled veal.
Brown sauce
Supplies liquid that braises the rolls gently, keeping them moist and building savoury depth.
Butter
Carries fat for frying the olives, giving them a light browning and rich flavour.
Olives
Add a salty, briny flavour and a contrasting bite against the rich veal.

The step that matters

Simmering the rolls gently. At a hard boil the meat toughens and can fall apart, while slow, gentle simmering lets the connective tissue soften so the veal stays tender and moist.

“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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