Name: Fricassee of Veal with Celery
Ingredients: 1 large onion, finely chopped; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 breast of veal, cut into pieces; boiling water; 2-3 sticks of celery, cut into small pieces; salt and pepper to taste

Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricassee of Veal with Celery

Ingredients

1 large onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons butter
1 breast of veal, cut into pieces
boiling water
2-3 sticks of celery, cut into small pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Fry the chopped onion in butter until light brown.
Add the veal pieces to the pan and fry gently for a few minutes.
Pour in boiling water until the meat is half covered.
Add the celery pieces and season with salt and pepper.
Cook slowly for 2 hours.
Slightly thicken the gravy before serving.

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.

Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal breast: Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during slow cooking.
Onion: Builds a sweet, savoury base when fried in butter until light brown.
Butter: Carries the onion's flavour and enriches the pan for frying.
Celery: Adds a fresh, aromatic vegetable note that softens into the gravy.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. Gentle, low heat lets connective tissue in the veal break down slowly, so the meat turns tender rather than tough and stringy. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, veal, celery, pepper):

Carrotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, celery, pepper. 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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Fricassee of Veal with Celery