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Veal Olives

Veal olives are veal slices rolled with bacon and forcemeat, fried and simmered in brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Veal Olives

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the olives

  1. Lay a slice of bacon on each piece of veal.

  2. Spread a thin layer of forcemeat on top.

  3. Roll up tightly and secure with twine.

Braise

  1. Melt the butter or fat in a stewpan.

  2. Add the veal olives and fry until lightly browned.

  3. Pour away the fat and add the hot brown sauce.

  4. Cover closely and simmer gently for 1½ to 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the strings and arrange the olives on mashed potatoes.

  2. Strain the sauce over the olives before serving.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 fillet
Forms the tender meat wrapper that holds the filling together when rolled and braised.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the veal as it cooks.
Veal forcemeat
Provides a moist, seasoned filling that stays juicy during slow simmering.
Brown sauce
Supplies the liquid for simmering and the richly browned, savoury sauce served with the olives.
Butter or good fat
Carries heat for frying, browning the outside of the rolls and adding richness.

The step that matters

Cover closely and simmer gently. Slow, gentle simmering keeps the veal tender and prevents the sauce from reducing too fast or the meat from toughening. A vigorous boil would toughen the protein and make the rolls fall apart.

“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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