Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Roast Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and roast
Stuff the veal with bread or force-meat stuffing and season well.
Roast the veal slowly, basting often with water and melted butter.
Dredge lightly with flour after each basting.
Bake for 20 minutes for each pound of veal.
Make the gravy
To make gravy, remove fat from drippings and add 1 teaspoon of flour; season to taste.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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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Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,381 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,383 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 meat, cooked slowly so it stays moist and tender.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown as it bastes.
- Flour
- Dusted on the surface and in the gravy, it helps browning and thickens the drippings.
The step that matters
Roast the veal slowly and baste often. Slow roasting with frequent basting keeps the lean meat moist and lets the surface brown gradually without drying out. Rushing with high heat can leave the outside dry and the inside tough.
“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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