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Veal Fricassee

A veal stew cooked with butter, bay leaves, mace, flour, and rusk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Fricassee

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Cut the veal according to the bones and wash it in cold water.

  2. Place the veal in a flat iron Dutch oven and cover it with cold water.

  3. Skim the surface just before it begins to boil.

  4. Add 1 tablespoon of butter, bay leaves, and mace.

  5. Cover and cook for 1.5 hours.

  6. After 1 hour, add pepper and salt to taste.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix 2 tablespoons of browned flour with 1 tablespoon of butter and some liquor from the veal.

  2. Stir this mixture into the veal and add crushed rusk.

  3. Let it simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

  4. Remove bay leaves and mace before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Breast of veal
Main protein; slow simmering in water makes it tender and moist.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly toasted sauce.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Crushed double baked rusk
Absorbs liquid and adds body, helping thicken the sauce.
Liquor from the veal
Carries the meat's flavor and keeps the dish moist as it cooks.
Bay leaves
Infuse a subtle herbal aroma into the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Stirring in the browned flour mixture. Flour must be blended with fat and liquid before it goes into the hot liquid, then stirred in well. Stirring disperses the starch evenly so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, 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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