Skip to main content
Main

Veal Shape

A stew of veal and ham with eggs, simmered in stock and seasoned with lemon rind, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the veal

  1. Place the veal in a saucepan with the thinly cut lemon rind.

  2. Pour in the stock.

  3. Simmer gently for three hours.

  4. If the bacon is not cooked, add it for the last half-hour.

Make the gravy

  1. Remove the meat and ham from the pot.

  2. Cut the meat and ham off the bones.

  3. Return the bones to the saucepan.

  4. Boil quickly without a lid.

Assemble and set

  1. Hard boil the eggs.

  2. Slice the boiled eggs.

  3. Arrange the sliced eggs in a mold or dish.

  4. Layer the veal and ham on top.

  5. Season with pepper and salt.

  6. Strain the gravy.

  7. Add lemon juice to the gravy.

  8. Pour the gravy over the meat.

  9. Set aside until completely cold.

  10. Turn out the dish.

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

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

  2. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long gentle simmer.
Ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the meat and the gravy.
Stock
Supplies the liquid for the gravy and carries flavour from the simmered meat and bones.
Eggs
Add firm, sliced layers that give the finished dish a visible pattern and body.
Lemon
Its rind flavours the simmering liquid and its juice adds a bright acidity to the gravy.

The step that matters

Set aside until completely cold. Gelatin released from the simmered bones and veal sets the gravy as it cools. If the dish is not fully chilled, the gravy stays runny and the slices will not hold their shape when turned out.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes