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Veal Loaf

A loaf made from finely chopped veal and smoked ham mixed with bread crumbs, spices, and eggs, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the loaf

  1. Chop the veal and smoked ham very finely together.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, salt, pepper, sage, allspice, and beaten eggs; mix thoroughly.

  3. Place the mixture in a pan and weight it down for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. After molding, glaze with egg white.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 2 hours, basting often with hot water and butter.

  3. Slice thin when cold.

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. Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together331 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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 loaf and gives it a mild, tender meat texture.
Smoked ham
Adds salty, smoky flavor and extra fat that keeps the loaf moist.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and help bind the chopped meat so the loaf holds its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it sets firm when baked and cooled.

The step that matters

Basting during the slow bake. Frequent basting with hot water and butter adds moisture to the surface, which helps prevent the lean veal from drying out over the two-hour bake at low heat.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, bread, pepper, sage, 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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