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Veal Loaf

A loaf of finely chopped veal mixed with pork, onion, spices, eggs, milk, butter, and coated with crumbs, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the loaf

  1. In a large bowl, combine veal, salt pork, minced onion, mace or nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, milk, and melted butter. Mix thoroughly.

  3. Form the mixture into a loaf and cover it thickly with bread or cracker crumbs.

  4. Bake for 3 hours, basting occasionally with butter and water.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, slice thinly.

  2. Serve for breakfast or tea.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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 firm, sliceable texture when cooked.
Salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the lean veal moist and adds savoury flavour during baking.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Milk
Adds moisture that keeps the loaf tender rather than dry.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Form a coating over the loaf that adds light browning and a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Mixing the meat with the eggs, milk and butter. Mixing thoroughly spreads the binder evenly through the chopped meat. Uneven mixing leaves pockets that set differently, so the loaf can crumble when sliced or bake dry in places.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, onion, pepper, egg, milk, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, onion, pepper, egg, milk, butter. 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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