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Blanquettes of Veal

A veal dish with sautéed onions, herbs, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,494 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Blanquettes of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Roast the loin of veal.

  2. Cut the meat into thin, small pieces.

  3. Discard fat, skin, and sinew.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt a little butter in a stewpan.

  2. Finely chop the onions.

  3. Add the onions to the butter.

  4. Fry until soft.

  5. Stir in a dust of flour.

  6. Stir in a little veal gravy. Mix well.

  7. Add the bunch of sweet herbs and mace.

  8. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt. Adjust to taste.

  9. Beat the egg yolks with the cream.

  10. Grate in a little nutmeg.

  11. Add chopped shallot, parsley, and grated lemon rind. Stir well.

  12. Remove the bunch of sweet herbs.

  13. Keep stirring until the mixture is browned and the veal is tender.

  14. Serve hot.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Mace + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together42,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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 loin
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion base so the gravy becomes smooth and cohesive.
Egg yolks
Combined with cream, they enrich and thicken the sauce as it gently heats.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Onions
Softened in butter, they add sweetness and savoury depth to the base.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream mixture. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot too quickly. Stirring the mixture steadily and keeping the heat moderate lets the yolks thicken the sauce smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, flour, pepper, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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