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Veal Fricasee

Veal fricassee is a stew of veal pieces cooked in butter with broth, seasonings, and finished with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Fricasee

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and braise

  1. Wash the veal pieces well and drain them.

  2. In a stewpan, melt a piece of fresh butter.

  3. Add the veal, broth, coarse sea salt, black pepper, bay leaf, whole onions, and thyme.

  4. Cook over low heat until tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Before serving, stir in the egg yolks to thicken the sauce.

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 + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 through slow cooking in liquid.
Broth
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the veal and forms the base of the sauce.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat to the pan, carrying flavour and giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently set with heat, giving it a creamy body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by setting when heated gently. If the sauce is too hot or boils after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy, so the sauce should be kept below boiling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper, thyme, 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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