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Minced Veal

Minced Veal is a dish of small pieces of veal simmered in a seasoned gravy with herbs and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Minced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Boil the bones and trimmings of the meat in 1½ pints of water for 2 hours to make gravy.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Let the gravy cool.

  4. Remove the fat from the gravy.

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim the veal, removing gristle and brown edges, and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Season the veal with coarse sea salt, white pepper, grated nutmeg or mace, and the grated lemon rind.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix 1½ teaspoons of flour with a small slice of butter to thicken the gravy.

  2. Combine the veal with the thickened gravy.

  3. Heat gently without boiling.

  4. Serve with pale‑toasted sippets.

  5. Add cream if desired.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

White veal
Forms the main body of the dish, and its protein gives the minced texture and bite.
Gravy
Provides moisture and the savoury flavour that coats the minced meat.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch swells during gentle heating.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the thickened gravy.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aroma from the oils in the zest, lifting the rich meat.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Boiling can toughen the minced veal's proteins and can make the flour-thickened gravy grainy or break, so it should only be warmed through slowly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, mace, ham, flour, butter, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, mace, ham, flour, butter, nutmeg. 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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