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Fricasseed Veal

A veal fricassee cooked with butter, water, cream, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricasseed Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the veal in a dry kettle with a lump of butter.

  2. Fry for 15 minutes.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add enough water to cover the meat.

  2. Simmer slowly until the meat is done.

  3. Thicken the liquid with cream and flour.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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
Is the main protein, becoming tender and flavorful as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the veal brown during the initial frying.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, softening its flavor.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, cohesive sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until the meat is done. Gentle simmering keeps the veal tender and moist; a hard boil toughens muscle fibers and can make the liquid cloudy. Cook until the meat is done, not for a fixed time.

“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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