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Fillet of Veal Roasted

A roasted veal fillet served with a smooth gravy and peas or tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Fillet of Veal Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet and fill the space with dressing.

  2. Fasten the fillet together with skewers and wrap it tightly with string.

  3. Rub the fillet with butter, salt, and flour.

Roast

  1. Place the fillet in a pan with boiling water and butter.

  2. Bake the fillet.

  3. Start with a very hot oven for the first 30 minutes, then reduce to moderate heat.

  4. Baste the fillet often.

  5. Cook the fillet for 20 minutes per pound.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. When done, add lemon juice, pepper, salt, and flour to the pan to make a smooth gravy.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Serve the gravy in a boat alongside peas or tomatoes.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, sliceable texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown and the meat stay moist.
Flour
Coats the surface and thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the meat and butter.

The step that matters

Basting and roasting the fillet. Basting often keeps the surface moist while heat sets the proteins, helping the veal stay juicy instead of drying out during the long roast.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, lemon, 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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