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Bombarded Veal

A veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat, spinach, oysters, and marrow, baked and served with a sauce of mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, and truffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 26 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Bombarded Veal

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 the veal

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the bone from the fillet of veal.

  3. Make a forcemeat by mixing the bread crumbs, bacon, anchovy, marjoram, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, salt, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, egg, and cream.

  4. Fill the cavity of the fillet with the forcemeat.

  5. Make cuts around the fillet about 1 inch apart.

  6. Fill some cuts with forcemeat, some with spinach, and others with a mixture of bread crumbs, oysters, and beef marrow.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Wrap the caul fat around the fillet and place it in a deep pot with 1 pint of water.

  2. Cover the pot with a coarse paste to prevent unpleasant flavors.

  3. Bake in the oven until cooked through.

  4. Once done, skim off the fat and transfer the gravy to a saucepan.

  5. Add mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, artichokes, browning sauce, morels, and truffles to the gravy.

  6. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour and bring to a gentle boil.

  7. Serve the veal on a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Marjoram + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into tender, sliceable meat.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a soft, binding body.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist as it bakes.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the forcemeat.
Butter and flour
Thicken the gravy into a smooth, coating sauce.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. The stuffed fillet is thick and dense, so the centre can stay underdone while the outside browns. Cooking to a full internal temperature keeps the forcemeat safe and set.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, anchovy, marjoram, lemon, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, anchovy, marjoram, lemon, thyme, parsley, 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.

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