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Blanquette De Veau

A French veal stew simmered with onions, garlic, and bouquet garni, finished with a beurre blanc sauce enriched with egg yolks and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Blanquette De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Place the veal pieces in a 9-liter pot and cover with water.

  2. Add salt and pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Add onions, cloves, and bouquet garni.

  5. Simmer for 1 hour.

  6. Strain the veal.

  7. Place the pieces in a 3-liter pot.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate 2-liter pot, make a roux with butter and flour.

  2. Cook the roux for 4 minutes.

  3. Remove the roux from heat.

  4. Gradually mix in the cooking liquid, stirring constantly.

  5. Reduce the sauce for 20 minutes while stirring.

  6. Incorporate the egg yolks.

  7. Strain the sauce into the pot with the veal.

  8. Bring to a boil for 1 minute.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the chopped parsley.

  2. 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle simmer.
Butter
Enriches the roux and carries flavour into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked into a roux.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it body and a silky texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Incorporating the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce boils after they are added, the yolks can scramble and turn grainy, so the sauce should be kept hot but not boiling at that point.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, pepper, onion, butter, flour, 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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