Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Veal Roast Larded
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the veal
Rub the veal with salt and pepper and let it stand for 30 minutes.
Lard the meat with thin strips of fat bacon.
Brown and cook
Heat the butter in a kettle and brown the meat on all sides.
Dissolve a little flour in water and add it to the meat, letting it boil together for 5 minutes.
Place the kettle without a cover in the Caloric using two hot stones and cook for 1 hour.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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 (in the method)
- Is the main protein that becomes tender and flavorful during long cooking.
- Butter
- Fat for browning the surface of the meat, adding color and rich flavor.
- Fat bacon
- Lardons add fat that keeps the lean veal moist as it cooks.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy as it boils with the meat.
The step that matters
Browning the meat on all sides. Searing creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction, and meat that is unevenly browned or crowded in the pan will steam and lose that depth of flavor.
“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.
You might also like
The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipes