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Minced Veal

A minced veal mixture with ham, mushrooms, and Worcestershire sauce served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Minced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal mixture

  1. Heat the meat jelly or stock in a saucepan.

  2. Add the diced veal, ham, Worcestershire sauce, and mushrooms.

  3. Heat until boiling.

  4. Blend cornstarch with a little cold stock.

  5. Stir the mixture.

  6. Cook for about 2 minutes until smooth and slightly thickened.

Serve

  1. Serve the mixture on toast.

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. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body and texture of the dish.
Meat jelly or strong stock
Supplies savory liquid and flavor that forms the base of the mixture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving a smooth, slightly thickened texture.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a soft, tender texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Blending the cornstarch. Cornstarch must be mixed with cold stock before adding it to hot liquid, otherwise it clumps. Once the mixture is hot, it thickens as the starch granules swell, so stirring keeps it smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, sauce, meat, mushroom):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, sauce, meat, mushroom. 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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