Why it works: Marjoram and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 957 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Minced Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the cold veal into slices and mince it very finely with a chopping knife.
Season the minced veal with pepper, coarse sea salt, sweet marjoram, grated lemon peel, and nutmeg.
Put the bones and trimmings in a saucepan with a little water and simmer over medium heat to extract the gravy.
Strain the gravy over the minced veal in a stew pan.
Add the butter and a little milk or cream to the veal.
Simmer everything together until thoroughly warmed, but do not allow it to boil.
Serve with toasted and buttered bread arranged around the dish, or cover the mince with grated bread moistened with butter and browned.
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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Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together957 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together687 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,609 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, marjoram, lemon, butter, milk, bread):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Sagefits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, marjoram, lemon, butter, milk, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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