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Escaloped Veal

Escaloped Veal is a baked veal dish with salt pork, eggs, onions, crackers or breadcrumbs, and optional celery.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Escaloped Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine the veal, salt pork, beaten eggs, onions, crackers or bread crumbs, and celery if using.

  2. Season the mixture to taste and mix well.

  3. Pack the mixture tightly into a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake thoroughly until cooked through.

  2. Slice and serve cold.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  4. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides its meaty texture.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist during baking.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and crumbs together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Crackers or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the loaf a tender, sliceable structure.
Onions
Add aromatic flavor and some moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pack the mixture tightly into a baking dish. Tight packing removes air pockets so the loaf binds firmly and slices cleanly once cooled. Loose packing can crumble when cut.

Swap the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, egg, onion, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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