Why it works: Veal and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,056 recipes. Both carry cis-3-hexenol, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Veal Hash
Ingredients
Directions
Thicken the liquid
Stir the flour into the boiling water after adding the cold water.
Let the mixture boil for about 5 minutes.
Heat the hash
Combine the chopped veal and stale bread in a pan and pour the gravy over them.
Heat thoroughly for 10 minutes without cooking.
Serve
Arrange the toasted bread pieces on a dish.
Place a large spoonful of the hash on each piece.
Serve immediately while very hot.
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.
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Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,056 recipes
Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
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Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,383 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + vealtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,886 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and bread barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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
- Provides the meaty body and texture of the hash.
- Stale bread
- Soaks up the gravy and helps bind the chopped veal into a soft mass.
- Flour
- Thickens the boiling liquid so it clings to the veal and bread.
- Gravy
- Adds moisture and savory flavor that keeps the hash from drying out.
The step that matters
Heat thoroughly for 10 minutes without cooking.. The veal is already cooked, so the goal is only to warm it through. Prolonged or vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and dries the mixture, so keep the heat gentle.
“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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