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Blanquette of Veal

A veal stew simmered with herbs, carrots, turnip, onion, and a creamy sauce made from butter, flour, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Blanquette of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into 2‑inch square pieces and place in a pot with enough cold water to cover.

  2. Add white pepper, salt, sweet herbs, carrot, turnip, and onion.

  3. Bring to a boil slowly.

  4. Skim off any scum that rises.

  5. Cook gently for 30‑40 minutes until the veal is tender.

  6. Drain the veal.

  7. Rinse it in cold water to whiten it.

  8. Return the broth to the heat.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt butter.

  2. Stir in flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add 1½ quarts of broth.

  4. Season with additional salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  6. Whisk in the yolks of the eggs.

  7. Add the veal.

  8. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve

  1. Serve with optional mushrooms.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley on a hot platter.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Veal breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender during gentle simmering.
Eggs
Egg yolks whisked into the hot sauce thicken it and give it a silky richness.
Flour
Starch thickens the butter and broth into a smooth, coating sauce.
Butter
Fat carries flavour and helps form the smooth roux base for the sauce.

The step that matters

Whisk in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot or boils after adding them, they can curdle and turn grainy. Remove from direct heat or keep it below a boil while whisking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, onion):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, onion. 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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