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Blanquette of Veal or Lamb, with Mushrooms

A veal or lamb dish simmered with mushrooms, finished with a sauce tournée, beaten egg yolks, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,987 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Blanquette of Veal or Lamb, with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Slice very thin the white part of some cold veal, divide and trim it into scallops not larger than a shilling, and lay it into a clean saucepan or stewpan.

  2. Wipe the veal with a bit of new flannel and a few grains of salt.

Cook the mushrooms

  1. Slice a quarter to half a pint of mushroom-buttons into a little butter which just begins to simmer.

  2. Stew the mushrooms in the butter from twelve to fifteen minutes, without allowing them to take the slightest colour.

  3. Lift the mushrooms out and lay them on the veal.

Make and finish the sauce

  1. Pour boiling a pint of sauce tournée over the veal and mushrooms.

  2. Let the blanquette remain near, but not close to the fire for a while.

  3. Bring it nearer, heat it slowly, and when it is on the point of boiling mix a spoonful or two of the sauce with the well-beaten yolks of four fresh eggs.

  4. Stir the mixture to the remainder.

  5. Add the strained juice of half a small lemon.

  6. Shake the saucepan above the fire until the sauce is just set, and serve the blanquette instantly.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mushroom + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the sauce into a smooth, lightly set coating when gently heated.
Mushroom-buttons
Stewed in butter, they add savoury flavour and body to the blanquette.
Veal (in the method)
Thin scallops of tender meat form the main body of the dish.
Sauce tournée (in the method)
Forms the creamy base that the veal and mushrooms are served in.

The step that matters

Heating the egg-yolk liaison. Yolks thicken by gentle heat but curdle if the sauce boils after they are added. Mixing in a spoonful or two of hot sauce first tempers the yolks so they blend without scrambling.

“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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