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Gravy for Veal Rissoles

A rich veal stock thickened with butter and flour, finished with ketchup, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gravy for Veal Rissoles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. In a saucepan, combine veal bones, trimmings, butter, and minced onion.

  2. Shake the saucepan over heat until the onion is lightly browned.

  3. Add enough thin flour and water to barely cover the contents.

  4. Include parsley, mace, lemon rind, peppercorns, and a little sugar.

  5. Cover the saucepan and let it simmer gently until the stock is strong and flavorful.

  6. Strain and cool the stock, then remove the fat.

Finish the gravy

  1. Stir in ketchup, cream, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil, and the gravy is ready to serve.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal bones
Release gelatin and deep meaty flavor as they simmer, giving the stock body.
Onion
Browning in the butter adds sweetness and savory depth to the stock.
Thin flour
Lightly thickens the liquid so the gravy holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onion brown.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the finished gravy.
Ketchup
Contributes sweetness and acidity that brighten the savory stock.

The step that matters

Simmering the stock gently. Gentle simmering extracts flavor and gelatin from the bones without clouding the liquid. A hard boil can make the stock cloudy and greasy, and it can also reduce it too quickly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, onion, flour, parsley, lemon, sugar):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, flour, parsley, lemon, sugar. 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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