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Veal, Minced, with Poached Eggs

A dish of minced veal served with poached eggs, garnished with bacon rolls, and accompanied by a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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, Minced, with Poached Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Cut the lean meat from the bones.

  2. Mince it finely with a small portion of lean ham, if available.

  3. Break up the bones.

  4. Stew them in enough water to cover, with carrot, onion, celery, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt.

  5. Simmer the gravy for at least 1 hour.

  6. Strain and skim the gravy.

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken the gravy with white thickening or flour and butter.

  2. Add a little milk or cream.

  3. Stir the sauce over heat until smooth and thick.

  4. Pour half of the sauce into another saucepan.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add the minced veal to the remaining sauce.

  2. Heat until thoroughly hot without boiling.

  3. Pile the mince in the center of a dish.

  4. Lay poached eggs on top.

  5. Garnish with small rolls of thin fried bacon.

  6. Pour a little of the reserved sauce over the mince.

  7. Serve the rest in a tureen.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the savory mince that is the body of the dish.
Bones from veal
Release gelatin and flavor into the simmered gravy, giving it body.
White thickening or flour and butter
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce that coats the mince.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and mellows the sauce's flavor and texture.
Poached eggs
Add a soft, runny yolk that enriches the sauce when broken.

The step that matters

Heat until thoroughly hot without boiling. Boiling the mince and sauce after adding milk or cream can cause the dairy to curdle and the sauce to separate, and can toughen the meat. Gentle heating keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, carrot, clove, celery, pepper, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, carrot, clove, celery, pepper, flour. 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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