Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Veal Hash
Ingredients
Directions
Make the gravy
Combine boiling water and flour mixed with cold water in a saucepan.
Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes.
Add black pepper, salt, and butter.
Keep the mixture hot but do not boil.
Make the hash
Chop the veal finely.
Mix the veal with an equal amount of stale bread crumbs.
Place the mixture in a pan.
Pour the gravy over the mixture.
Let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve the veal hash on buttered toast.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Chopped veal
- Forms the main body of the hash and provides its meaty flavor and texture.
- Stale bread crumbs
- Absorb the gravy and help bind the chopped veal into a cohesive mixture.
- Flour
- Thickens the boiling water into a gravy that coats the veal and crumbs.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the gravy.
The step that matters
Keep the gravy hot but do not boil. Once the flour-thickened gravy is cooked, holding it just below a boil keeps it smooth and prevents the starch from breaking down or the butter from separating, so it coats the hash evenly.
“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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