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Veal, Blanquette Of, with Cucumbers

A veal blanquette featuring cucumber pieces simmered in a butter, nutmeg, sugar, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Veal, Blanquette Of, with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cucumber

  1. Sprinkle cucumber pieces with salt and cover with vinegar, then let sit for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain and dry the cucumber with a soft cloth.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add nutmeg and sugar.

  3. Add cucumber and simmer until tender.

  4. Drain off the butter.

  5. Add white sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the veal and simmer gently until the meat is hot.

  2. Serve the veal on a dish, pour the sauce over, and garnish with toast.

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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Walnut + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together380 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Cucumber + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together432 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 is already cooked and only needs to be heated through in the sauce.
Cucumber
Adds a crisp, slightly acidic bite that contrasts with the rich, creamy sauce.
Vinegar
Softens and sharpens the cucumber while it sits, giving the dish its tang.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the base in which the cucumber is cooked.
White sauce
Forms the creamy body of the dish that coats the meat and cucumber.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the meat is hot. The veal is already cooked, so it only needs gentle heat. Boiling a thickened white sauce can cause it to break or turn grainy, and toughen the meat.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, walnut, cucumber, vinegar, butter, sugar, sauce):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, walnut, cucumber, vinegar, butter, sugar, sauce. 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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