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Roast Fillet of Veal

Roast a veal fillet stuffed with bread crumbs, salt pork, pepper, sea salt, and marjoram, then braise with broth and thicken with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Fillet of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the bone from the veal and fill the cavity with stuffing made from bread crumbs, chopped salt pork, pepper, coarse sea salt, and sweet marjoram.

  2. Make deep incisions in the veal. Fill the incisions with stuffing or press in strips of salt pork.

  3. If available, use a larding needle to insert strips of salt pork into the veal without cutting it.

  4. Bind the veal tightly with twine.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Place the veal in a roasting pan with a little water.

  2. Baste the veal often.

  3. Roast until fully cooked, avoiding rare meat.

  4. After cooking, pour off the fat from the dripping pan to make gravy. Add broth or water if needed. Season with pepper and salt. Thicken with browned flour.

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 + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together883 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

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, cooked through as the dish's centerpiece.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat in the stuffing, keeping it moist and helping it hold together.
Salt pork
Adds fat that bastes the lean veal from within, giving moisture and savory flavor.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan juices into gravy and adds a toasted, nutty color and flavor.

The step that matters

Roast until fully cooked, avoiding rare meat. Veal must reach a fully cooked interior for safety, yet overcooking dries lean meat. Basting with pan fat helps keep the roast moist while it cooks through.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, pork, pepper, flour):

  1. Sagefits about as well
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, pork, pepper, 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.

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