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Leg of Veal Stuffed with Mushrooms

A roasted leg of veal filled with a mushroom, ham, and breadcrumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Leg of Veal Stuffed with Mushrooms

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of veal using a sharp knife.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the mushrooms, bread crumbs, ham, onion, and milk together to make the stuffing.

Stuff and bake

  1. Stuff the mixture into the leg of veal.

  2. Bake the stuffed leg of veal at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes per pound.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal leg
Forms the main body of the dish, which is stuffed and baked whole.
Button mushrooms
Add moisture and savory flavor to the stuffing as they cook down in butter.
Fresh bread crumbs
Soak up the butter and milk, giving the stuffing a moist, tender body.
Minced ham
Adds salty, savory flavor to the stuffing.
Sweet milk
Moistens the stuffing so the bread crumbs hold together.

The step that matters

Stuff and bake the leg of veal. Veal is lean and dries out easily in the oven. Keeping the stuffing moist and baking at a steady moderate temperature helps the meat stay tender while it cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, butter, pepper, mushroom, milk, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, butter, pepper, mushroom, milk, 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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