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Veal a LA Mode

Seasoned veal fillet roasted in buttered paper, served with a mushroom‑herb gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the veal all over with coarse sea salt and lard it.

  2. Make a seasoning by mixing chopped sweet herbs, shallots, mushrooms, black pepper, powdered nutmeg, and mace.

  3. Moisten the seasoning with sweet oil and coat the veal with it.

  4. Place the veal in a tureen and let it marinate for several hours or overnight.

Roast and make the sauce

  1. Remove the veal, wrap it in two sheets of buttered white paper, and roast or bake it.

  2. Once cooked, remove the paper and scrape off the seasoning.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the seasoning with the gravy, lemon juice, a piece of butter rolled in flour, and a little salt.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim well, and pour over the veal.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Parsley + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and moist when slowly roasted.
Butter
Adds richness and, rolled in flour, thickens the sauce while carrying flavour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Shallots
Add a mild sweet-savoury aroma that infuses the seasoning and sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoury depth to the seasoning and the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the fat.

The step that matters

Wrapping and roasting the veal in buttered paper. The buttered paper protects the lean meat from drying out in the oven, so the veal stays moist while it cooks through slowly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, thyme, basil, shallot, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, thyme, basil, shallot, mushroom, pepper. 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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