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Blanquette De Veau

A French veal stew with butter, flour, mushrooms, onions, herbs, cream, egg yolks, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Blanquette De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and simmer

  1. Cut the veal into neat square pieces.

  2. Place the veal in a stewpan and cover with hot water.

  3. Add the butter, flour, mushrooms, onions, and herbs.

  4. Simmer until the veal is tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the cream, egg yolks, and lemon juice.

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in at the end.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Preserved mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, so if the sauce is too hot when they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Add them off the heat or with the liquid barely simmering, and do not let it boil afterward.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, mushroom, parsley, thyme, marjoram. 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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