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Veal Olives

Veal olives are veal strips rolled with bacon, force‑meat, and breadcrumbs, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Shape the olives

  1. Cut very thin slices from a fillet of veal, free from the bone, creating long strips.

  2. Dip each slice in the egg yolk.

  3. Lay thin slices of bacon on the veal, then egg the bacon.

  4. Add a little veal force-meat on top of the bacon.

  5. Roll the veal tightly.

  6. Sew the roll with strong thread or twine, leaving a large knot.

Coat and roast

  1. Rub each olive with egg.

  2. Roll each olive in seasoned bread crumbs.

  3. Roast on a spit before a brisk fire for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of veal
Forms the thin outer wrapper that holds the filling together as the olive cooks.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist and carries flavour through the roll.
Veal force-meat
Provides a soft, moist filling that fills the centre of each olive.
Egg yolk
Acts as a sticky binder so the veal and bread crumbs adhere to each olive.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned coating on the outside of each olive when roasted.

The step that matters

Roll the veal tightly and sew it firmly. A tight roll keeps the filling packed inside and the layers in contact. A loose roll lets the filling leak out and the olive open up while it roasts.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, meat, bread, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, meat, bread, 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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