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Veal Loaf

A steamed or baked loaf of ground veal mixed with onion, spices, breadcrumbs, eggs, and Crisco.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 731 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Veal Loaf

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.

Prepare

  1. Combine ground veal and Crisco in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with minced onion, salt, ground cloves, and sage.

  3. Add bread crumbs and mix in well-beaten eggs.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a well-greased pan.

Cook

  1. Steam the loaf for 2 hours.

  2. Alternatively, bake the loaf in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour, placing the pan in a larger vessel with 1 cup of water to prevent crust formation.

Serve

  1. Serve on a platter garnished with watercress and tomato sauce.

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. Clove + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground veal
Forms the main body of the loaf and provides its meaty flavor and texture.
Crisco
Adds fat that keeps the loaf moist and tender as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the loaf a softer, more cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Baking with a water bath. Placing the pan in a larger vessel with water moderates the oven heat around the loaf, slowing surface drying and preventing a hard, overly browned crust while the centre cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, sage, egg, bread):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, sage, egg, 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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