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Veal Birds

Veal Birds are thin veal slices rolled with salt pork, cracker crumbs, and seasonings, fried and simmered in cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 Birds

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Slice veal from the loin very thin, removing bones, skin, and fat, and pound until ¼ inch thick.

  2. Cut the veal into pieces measuring 2.5 by 4 inches.

Make the filling

  1. Chop the trimmings together with 1 square inch of salt pork for each bird.

  2. Add half as many cracker crumbs as veal and season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, cayenne, and onion.

  3. Moisten with 1 egg and a little hot water, mixing as for a veal loaf.

  4. Spread the mixture on each slice nearly to the edge, roll tightly, and secure with string or skewers.

Cook and serve

  1. Dredge the rolled veal with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Fry slowly in hot butter until golden brown.

  3. Half cover with cream and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Remove the strings and serve on toast, pouring cream over them, garnishing with toast points and lemon.

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

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

  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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of each bird and becomes tender when rolled and simmered.
Egg
Binds the filling so it holds together when rolled and cooked.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the filling body so it stays soft rather than watery.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the filling moist during cooking.
Butter
Browns the outside of the rolls through frying, adding colour and flavour.
Cream
Simmered with the birds to add richness and a silky sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the rolled veal slowly in butter. Frying slowly lets the outside brown evenly without scorching, while the heat reaches the filling. Hot, fast frying can burn the butter and leave the centre underdone.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, pepper, lemon, egg, flour, butter. 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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