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Veal Cake for a Side Dish

A layered side dish of hard‑boiled eggs, veal, ham, and gravy baked into a cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Cake for a Side Dish

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 layers

  1. Hard boil the eggs and cut the yolks in half.

  2. Butter a pot or mold and layer some egg pieces at the bottom.

  3. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

  4. Add a layer of veal and ham, seasoning between each layer.

  5. Repeat layering with eggs, veal, and ham until the mold is full.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour in enough gravy to reach the top of the meat.

  2. Spread 1 ounce of butter over the top and cover with double paper.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour.

  4. Press down with a spoon and let it cool before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 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

Eggs
Form a firm, sliceable layer that holds its shape between the meat layers.
Veal
Provides the main meaty body of the cake, which sets as it bakes.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor throughout the layered meat.
Gravy
Fills the mold and moistens the meat as it bakes and sets.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown and stay moist under the paper.

The step that matters

Press down with a spoon and let it cool before serving. As the meat cooks and cools, the gravy sets and the layers bind together. Pressing firmly while warm compacts the layers, and cooling lets the set gravy firm up so the cake slices cleanly instead of crumbling.

“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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