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Veal with Mushrooms

Veal cooked with onions, mushrooms, stock, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Veal with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Brown the sliced onion in butter in a pan.

  2. Add flour and cook until it turns brown.

  3. Stir in veal stock and mushroom liquor.

Finish and serve

  1. Add thin slices of cold roast veal and heat until hot.

  2. Incorporate sliced mushrooms and slowly add egg yolks.

  3. Cook for 2 more minutes and serve.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the meat, which is gently reheated in the sauce rather than cooked through.
Flour
Thickens the butter and onion mixture into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, adding richness and a smooth, silky texture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Veal stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the sauce is too hot or the yolks are added too quickly, they can scramble and turn grainy, so add them slowly and keep the heat low.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, egg, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, egg, butter, flour. 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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