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Blanquette of Veal a LA Reform

A veal stew with mushrooms, gherkins, vegetables, stock, roux, eggs, butter, and rice, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Blanquette of Veal a LA Reform

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal and stock base

  1. Cut the veal into scallops about 1.5 inches long and ¼ inch thick, then sprinkle with seasoning.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the veal, preserved mushrooms, and gherkins cut into long strips.

  3. Chop the onion, carrot, and celery into small pieces.

  4. Add to a stewpan with stock, parsley, and seasoning.

  5. Simmer for 1 hour.

  6. Add a little roux to the simmered mixture.

  7. Strain through a fine metal strainer.

Make the sauce

  1. In a clean stewpan, melt the butter and whisk in the eggs and boiling sauce.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the sauce over the scallops.

  4. Keep warm on the stove.

Cook the rice and serve

  1. Wash the rice.

  2. Add it to boiling water with a pinch of salt and boil until tender.

  3. Strain until dry.

  4. While still hot, fill a buttered mold with the rice, creating a hole in the center.

  5. Turn out onto a hot dish.

  6. Fill the center of the rice mold with the scallops.

  7. Serve very hot.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together6,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together12,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long simmer.
Eggs
Thicken the butter sauce through gentle coagulation when whisked in.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Roux
Thickens the simmered liquid so it clings to the veal.
Rice
Forms a starchy base that holds its shape in the buttered mold.
Preserved mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and soft texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Whisking eggs into the boiling sauce. Egg proteins set when heated, so if the sauce boils after the eggs go in, they can scramble and make it grainy. Add the eggs off the boil and whisk constantly so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, carrot, celery, parsley, egg, butter):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, carrot, celery, parsley, egg, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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