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Sour Cream Veal Loaf

A loaf of ground veal mixed with carrots, onion, and sour cream, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sour Cream Veal Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the loaf

  1. In a bowl, combine the ground veal, ground carrots, and finely chopped onion.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  3. Moisten the mixture with sour cream.

  4. Pack the mixture into a loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1.5 hours.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 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

Ground veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides its meaty structure as it cooks.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and a tender, rich texture to the loaf.
Ground carrots
Adds moisture and natural sweetness, helping keep the loaf tender.
Onion
Contributes aromatic flavor and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with sour cream. Veal is very lean, so without enough added moisture the loaf can dry out and become crumbly while baking. Adding sour cream gives fat and water that keep the texture soft and sliceable.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, cream, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, cream, 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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