Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Boast Veal
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Cut a pocket in the breast of veal.
In a bowl, mix bread crumbs with salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon of butter.
Fill the pocket of the veal with the bread crumb mixture.
Roast
Place the veal in a pan with a little water.
Roast slowly at 300°F (150°C), basting with a mixture of flour and the remaining butter.
Cook until the veal is well done.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,056 recipes
Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Breast of veal
- Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked through to become tender when roasted slowly.
- Light bread crumbs
- Absorb the seasoned butter and fill the pocket, keeping the stuffing moist as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and the basting mixture, promoting browning and flavor.
- Flour
- Mixed with butter for basting, helping the basting mixture cling to the meat and brown.
The step that matters
Roast slowly at 300°F (150°C). Low, slow heat gives the connective tissue in the veal time to soften while the meat cooks through, keeping it from drying out. Cooking it too hot can toughen the meat and dry the stuffing.
“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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