Skip to main content
Main

Veal, Fillet Of, Braised

A braised veal fillet cooked with bacon, carrots, turnip, onion, celery, and aromatics, finished with a brown roux gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Veal, Fillet Of, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the veal

  1. Cover the bottom of a braising pan with sliced bacon, carrot, turnip, onion, and celery.

  2. Add ½ cup of veal stock.

  3. Place the fillet of veal on top.

  4. Add more bacon, peppercorns, and cloves.

  5. Cover with a lid.

  6. Simmer to reduce the gravy.

  7. Add more stock to half the depth of the meat.

  8. Cook gently for about three hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Drain the meat.

  2. Place it on a hot dish.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with brown roux to a creamy consistency.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Add a glass of light wine.

  7. Pour the gravy around the meat.

  8. Serve very hot.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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 fillet
The main cut; slow braising in liquid tenderises its lean meat.
Sliced bacon
Releases fat and savoury flavour into the braising liquid and vegetables.
Veal stock
Forms the moist braising liquid that cooks the meat gently and becomes the gravy.
Brown roux
Thickens the strained gravy to a creamy consistency.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and flavours the braising liquid.
Light wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Cook gently for about three hours. Low, gentle heat breaks down the connective tissue slowly, keeping the lean veal tender and moist. Boiling would toughen the proteins and dry the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, veal, clove, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, veal, clove, wine. 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes