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Veal Loaf

A loaf of finely chopped veal and salt pork baked with eggs, crackers, butter, lemon rind, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine veal, salt pork, beaten eggs, crushed crackers, melted butter, lemon rind, salt, pepper, and nutmeg or sage.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the mixture into a loaf shape.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs and small pieces of butter over the top.

  3. Place the loaf in a pan with boiling water.

  4. Baste often and bake for 2 to 3 hours.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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, giving it its meaty structure and substance.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Salt pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the lean veal from drying out during baking.
Butter crackers
Crushed crackers soak up juices and help bind the meat into a tender loaf.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and flavor to the lean veal.

The step that matters

Baste often and bake for 2 to 3 hours. Veal is lean and dries out easily over a long bake. Frequent basting with the pan liquid keeps the surface moist and the interior tender, while the water bath moderates the heat.

“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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