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Veal, with Cucumbers

A roasted veal served with cucumber pieces, onion, and a sauce of sauce tournee, broth, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,564 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Veal, with Cucumbers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal and cucumbers

  1. Roast the veal until cooked through.

  2. Let it cool and cut it into scallops.

  3. Cut three cucumbers into quarters and pare them to the size of the scallops.

  4. Mince the parings and some other cucumber pieces with the onion to make a puree.

Make the sauce

  1. Fry the onion and cucumber trimmings in butter until tender.

  2. Moisten with sauce tournee.

  3. Stew on low heat for 1 hour, skimming off grease.

  4. Rub the sauce through a fine sieve.

Cook the cucumbers and finish

  1. Marinate the remaining whole cucumbers in salt and vinegar for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain.

  3. Add the cucumbers to the sauce tournee.

  4. Boil until done.

  5. Fry gently with butter, parsley, and green onions.

  6. Dredge with flour.

  7. Moisten with broth, boiling for 1 hour.

  8. Skim off butter.

  9. Drain cucumbers.

  10. Reduce the sauce until thickened.

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. Cucumber + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Provides the main meat, cooked through before being cut into scallops for the dish.
Cucumbers
Supply the main vegetable body and fresh, slightly tart flavour, softened by cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour when frying the onion, cucumber trimmings and garnish.
Fine white flour
Dusted on the cucumbers, it helps thicken the sauce as it cooks.
Sauce tournee
Forms the base sauce, giving body and a smooth, thickened texture to the dish.
White vinegar
Acidity in the marinade brightens the cucumbers and helps them keep their shape.

The step that matters

Rub the sauce through a fine sieve. Pressing the puree through a fine sieve removes fibres and solids, giving the sauce a smooth, even texture rather than a grainy one.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Cauliflowerfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cucumber, butter, sauce, vinegar, flour, parsley. 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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