Name: Veal and Pork Mould
Ingredients: 1 pound veal (leg or shoulder); 15 cents worth of fat and lean pork, cut small; 3 tablespoons freshly grated breadcrumbs; 1 heaped teaspoon salt; 1 heaped saltspoonful black pepper; juice of 1 lime; a pinch of mixed spice; 2 eggs, well beaten

Why it works: Pepper and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,491 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal and Pork Mould

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

1 pound veal (leg or shoulder)
15 cents worth of fat and lean pork, cut small
3 tablespoons freshly grated breadcrumbs
1 heaped teaspoon salt
1 heaped saltspoonful black pepper
juice of 1 lime
a pinch of mixed spice
2 eggs, well beaten

Directions

Prepare

Cut the veal into small pieces.
Combine veal, pork, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, lime juice, mixed spice, and beaten eggs in a bowl.

Steam

Transfer the mixture into a deep buttered mold.
Cover with buttered paper and steam for 2 hours.
After steaming, place in a warm oven for a few minutes.

Serve

Once cool, unmold and decorate with tomato jelly and mustard greens.

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.

Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,491 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pork + limetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together566 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and set it firm as it steams.
Breadcrumbs: Absorb moisture and help give the mould a tender, sliceable texture.
Veal: Provides the main meat structure and savoury flavour.
Pork: Adds fat that keeps the mould moist during long steaming.

The step that matters

Steaming the mould. Steaming gently for the full 2 hours cooks the egg-bound meat through and sets it firmly. Covering with buttered paper keeps moisture in so the mould does not dry out or become tough.

Swap the lime

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

Lemonfits better
Limethe original
Cherryfits about as well
Mangofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, pepper, egg. 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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Veal and Pork Mould