Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 104,138 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Make the stock
Gently boil the veal until the meat falls from the bones.
Remove the meat from the stock and refrigerate overnight.
Scrape off all the fat from the stock, which should be a firm jelly.
Clarify and serve
Place the stock on the back of the stove and add the egg and shell, peppercorn, and salt to taste.
Let it simmer for several hours until perfectly clear and amber colored.
Strain the stock through cheesecloth.
Serve the clear stock as is with croutons, saltines, or finger rolls.
For a pottage, add sweet cream and flour to the stock and serve with tapioca.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Egg + flourtop 8% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together104,138 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + creamtop 12% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together41,958 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Cream + flourtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together29,941 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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Veal + creamtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together3,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Veal + eggtop 15% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together6,841 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 104,138 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Veal
- Breaks down into gelatin and flavor, so the stock sets to a firm jelly when chilled.
- Egg and shell
- Egg white and shell gather cloudy particles as they simmer, clarifying the stock.
- Sweet cream
- Adds richness and body to the stock when making the pottage version.
- Flour
- Thickens the cream-enriched stock to give the pottage its body.
The step that matters
Simmer gently until clear. A rolling boil breaks up the egg-white raft and clouds the stock again, so it should barely tremble at a gentle simmer for clarity.
“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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