Skip to main content
Main

Veal Cakes

Layered veal, ham, eggs, parsley, and spices baked in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Veal Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a mold or basin with butter.

  2. Chop and scald the parsley, then place it in small heaps around the mold with some sliced hard-boiled egg.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer slices of raw veal and ham, sprinkling with mace, white pepper, and salt.

  2. Add more egg and parsley, then repeat layering until the mold is full.

  3. Pour in the stock, cover with paper, and bake for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Let it cool, then turn it out onto a dish.

  2. Garnish with parsley and barberries.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 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 meaty body of the cake, setting firm as it cooks.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add structure and a firm, sliceable texture within the layers.
Stock
Provides moisture that keeps the layers tender and helps bind them as they set.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor that seasons the layered meat.
Parsley
Adds fresh, herbal aroma and color between the layers.

The step that matters

Pour in the stock, cover with paper, and bake for 2 hours. Gentle, covered baking keeps the veal moist and lets the proteins set evenly. Too much heat can dry the meat and toughen it, so the cake can crack or turn rubbery.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, parsley, veal, ham, white pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, parsley, veal, ham, white pepper. 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.

You might also like

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