Name: Breast of Veal with Truffles
Ingredients: 1 whole breast of veal; 1 pound truffles, sliced; 1 glass Madeira wine; Juice of 1 Seville orange; Coulis (sauce made from the braising liquid)

Why it works: Veal and truffle work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 815 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Breast of Veal with Truffles

Ingredients

1 whole breast of veal
1 pound truffles, sliced
1 glass Madeira wine
Juice of 1 Seville orange
Coulis (sauce made from the braising liquid)

Directions

Prepare the veal as you would for a ragout.
In a saucepan, combine the sliced truffles with the coulis and some of the braising liquid.
Bring the truffles and coulis to a boil.
Add the Madeira wine and the juice of the Seville orange.
Remove the veal from the braise and let it dry to remove excess fat.
Leave as many truffles on the veal as possible.

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.

Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together815 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Truffle + madeira winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together195 recipes
Madeira wine + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together230 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Veal + madeira winetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together211 recipes
Truffle + saucetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,490 recipes

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

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, truffle, madeira wine, sauce):

Lemonfits better
Applefits about as well
Red currantfits about as well
Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, truffle, madeira wine, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.