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Minced Veal

A dish of diced veal simmered in white sauce, seasoned with nutmeg and lemon, served with bacon rolls and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Minced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the veal mixture

  1. Cut the veal into small dice and mix it into the white sauce.

  2. Add a pinch of nutmeg and a little lemon juice to the mixture.

  3. Cook slowly over low heat until very hot.

Bake the bacon and serve

  1. Skewer the small rolls of bacon and cook in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about eight minutes.

  2. Serve the veal on a dish, garnished with the bacon, lemon, and parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  5. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meaty bulk of the mixture.
White sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy texture that binds the minced veal together.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and browning on the surface when baked in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the veal and sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the veal mixture slowly over low heat. Cooking gently over low heat keeps the white sauce smooth and prevents it from scorching or curdling, while warming the cold cooked veal evenly through to serving temperature.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce, lemon, parsley):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce, lemon, parsley. 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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