Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Stuffed Veal
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare
Cut the veal round into two thick steaks, keeping them joined by the bone.
Prepare a dressing with bread crumbs, egg, butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Wet the dressing with warm water and mix well.
Spread the dressing between the meat slices, about ½ inch thick.
Wrap the meat with a cord and season liberally with salt and pepper.
Dredge the wrapped meat with flour and cover with butter.
Bake and serve
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 2.5 hours, covering with a dough made of water and flour after it warms up.
Monitor to prevent scorching; add small amounts of water if necessary to keep it from boiling.
Once done, remove the dough cover and spread remaining dressing on top.
Brown the dish in the oven.
Make gravy by stirring flour into water and boiling in the meat pan. Add butter to the gravy if needed.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal round
- Forms the main body of the dish and cooks into tender, moist slices.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture to form a soft, spoonable dressing that fills the layers.
- Egg
- Binds the dressing so it holds together while baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown.
- Flour
- Coats the meat and thickens the gravy made from the pan.
The step that matters
Covering with the dough and monitoring the heat. The flour-and-water dough cover shields the meat from direct heat, and adding small amounts of water keeps the pan from scorching or boiling dry. Too much heat or too little liquid can toughen the meat or burn the drippings used for gravy.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, egg, butter, pepper, flour):
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Sagefits about as well
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, egg, butter, 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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