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Veal, Fricandeau of

A veal fricandeau braised with bacon, carrots, turnips, onions, herbs, and stock, then finished in the oven to crisp the bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Veal, Fricandeau of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim the veal into an even, oblong or oval shape.

  2. Lard the veal thickly and evenly with bacon strips.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, combine sliced carrots, turnips, onions, bacon slices, veal trimmings, sweet herbs, bay leaves, salt, and pepper.

  2. Place the veal on top of the vegetables.

  3. Pour enough stock to cover the bacon without touching the veal.

  4. Cover the stewpan and bring to a slow boil.

  5. Simmer gently until the meat is tender, basting frequently.

Glaze and serve

  1. Transfer the veal to a preheated oven to crisp the bacon.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Skim off the fat.

  4. Boil quickly to glaze.

  5. Baste the fricandeau.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 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 fillet
Forms the main meat, which turns tender and sliceable through slow simmering.
Bacon strips
Larding adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean veal moist as it cooks.
Stock
Provides moisture and body, and reduces to a flavourful gravy for glazing.
Carrots
Aromatic base that flavours the stock and gravy as it simmers.
Onions
Aromatic base that adds savoury sweetness to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the meat is tender. A slow simmer lets collagen in the veal break down gradually, giving tenderness. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can dry the surface, so the liquid should only tremble.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip, onion. 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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