Skip to main content
Main

Breast of Veal Farcie

A veal breast stuffed with kidney, sausage, shallots, herbs, and egg yolks, braised in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Breast of Veal Farcie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Flatten the veal with a rolling pin.

  2. Prepare a filling by mixing kidney, sausage meat, shallots, salt, pepper, parsley, and egg yolks.

  3. Spread the filling on the veal, roll it up tightly, and sew it closed. Skewer it to secure.

Braise

  1. Place the rolled veal in a stewpan on slices of bacon.

  2. Add stock, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs. Cook until the veal is done.

  3. Remove the skewers.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Skim the sauce, strain it through a fine sieve, and add flour. Reduce the sauce and serve it around the 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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks slowly in stock.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling moist during cooking.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling together so it holds its shape when sliced.
Flour
Thickens the strained stock into a sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling and sewing the veal tightly. A loose roll can open or let filling escape during cooking, and it may cook unevenly. Tight rolling with secure skewers keeps the filling inside and the shape even as the meat cooks.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Leekfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, pepper, parsley, egg, flour. 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.

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes