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Stuffed Fillet of Veal with Bacon

A veal fillet stuffed with breadcrumbs, pork, herbs, and bacon, then boiled and baked, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stuffed Fillet of Veal with Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the veal. Shape the veal into a round with skewers. Bind the veal securely with soft twine.

  2. Fill the cavity with a mixture of breadcrumbs, chopped pork, thyme, parsley, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and lemon peel.

  3. Cover the top with thin slices of bacon or salt pork. Tie the bacon slices in place with twine.

Cook and finish

  1. Place the stuffed veal in a pot with boiling water. Cook slowly for 2 hours. Remove the twine.

  2. Brush the meat with raw egg. Coat the meat with rolled crackers.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes, basting often with gravy from the pot.

  4. Serve on a hot dish with the pork around it. Strain and thicken the gravy to serve on the side.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the roast and is the meat that is cooked and served.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, helping it hold together and stay moist.
Chopped pork
Adds richness and fat to the stuffing, keeping the filling moist during cooking.
Raw egg
Binds the cracker coating so it adheres to the meat and browns.
Bacon or salt pork
Lays fat over the top of the veal, adding moisture and savory flavor as it cooks.
Rolled crackers
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the meat in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. Gentle, long simmering in water lets the dense veal cook through and become tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and dry the outside before the stuffing is fully heated.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, thyme, parsley, pepper, lemon, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, thyme, parsley, pepper, lemon, 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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