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Pressed Veal

A dish of finely chopped veal mixed with a seasoned butter and egg sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pressed Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal and liquid

  1. Steam the veal slowly until tender, then chop it finely.

  2. Boil the liquid down to 1 cup.

Combine and press

  1. Add the butter, pepper, allspice, and beaten egg to the liquid.

  2. Mix well and combine with the chopped veal.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, and its connective tissue softens during slow steaming.
Cooking liquid from the veal
Carries gelatin from the meat, which helps the dish hold its shape when chilled.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, moister texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it hold once heated.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the meat.

The step that matters

Boil the liquid down to 1 cup. Reducing the liquid concentrates its gelatin and flavor. Too much water left in makes the pressed veal soft and less able to set firmly.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, egg. 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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