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Veal Shape

A chilled veal and ham terrine made with lemon, eggs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 Shape

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Stew the veal and lemon rind in a small amount of water until tender.

  2. Cut the veal and ham into small pieces and mince the lemon rind finely; set aside to cool.

Assemble and set

  1. Strain the stock, add lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper; let cool.

  2. Slice the hard-boiled eggs and arrange them in a mold or dish.

  3. Pour the cooled stock and meat mixture over the eggs and refrigerate until set.

Serve

  1. Once cold, turn out the dish to serve.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 the terrine and gives it a firm, sliceable texture once chilled.
Eggs
Hard-boiled slices provide visible structure and a firm, mild contrast within the set terrine.
Lemon
Its juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma that cut the richness of the meat and stock.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Let the stock cool until it sets. The gelatin in the stewed veal stock must be cooled and chilled fully to gel; pouring it too warm or not chilling long enough leaves the terrine loose and unable to hold its slices.

“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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