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Blanquette or Fricassee of Veal

A veal stew made with butter, flour, herbs, lemon, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Blanquette or Fricassee of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into small, thin pieces.

  2. In a stew pan, combine the veal, butter, salt, pepper, onions, sweet herbs, and laurel or peach leaves, then mix well.

Cook

  1. Pour in the warm water.

  2. Bring to a gentle boil for 5 minutes or more.

Finish

  1. Remove from heat.

  2. Stir in the lemon juice and beaten egg yolk.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + laureltop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Laurel + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + laureltop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,335 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat that is gently simmered until tender in the sauce.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Egg yolk
Stirred in off the heat, it enriches and thickens the sauce into a smooth, velvety texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk. Egg yolk thickens when heated, so adding it to a boiling sauce can scramble it. Removing the pan from heat first and stirring gently keeps the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, pepper, laurel, lemon, egg. 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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