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Veau Aux Olives

Veal flank rolls stuffed with veal, ham, breadcrumbs, herbs, and olives, simmered in a lemon‑nutmeg gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veau Aux Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut the veal flank into neat strips about 2 inches wide and 4 inches long.

  2. Pound the strips gently.

  3. Mix the cold veal, cold ham, bread crumbs, parsley, onion, egg, pepper, salt, lemon juice, and nutmeg.

  4. Place a layer of the mixture in the center of each veal strip, roll them up, and tie securely.

Brown and simmer

  1. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the rolls and brown them evenly on all sides.

  3. Add enough stock to half-cover the rolls, cover tightly, and simmer gently for 30 to 40 minutes.

  4. Remove the rolls to a hot dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy and bring it to a boil.

  2. Thicken the gravy with corn starch blended with cold water, stirring and boiling for 3 minutes.

  3. Add the olives, pepper, and salt to the gravy, then pour it over the rolls and serve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Veal flank
Forms the outer wrapper that holds the filling and becomes tender during simmering.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when the rolls are sliced and served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the filling and give it a softer, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the outside of the rolls in the pan.
Spanish olives
Add a salty, briny flavor to the gravy.
Corn starch (in the method)
Thickens the strained stock into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer keeps the veal tender; a hard boil toughens its proteins and can dry the rolls, while the tight lid traps steam so the stock stays at a low level.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, parsley, egg, pepper, lemon. 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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