Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Veal Hash
Ingredients
Directions
Make the gravy
Combine boiling water, flour, and cold water in a saucepan.
Boil for 5 minutes.
Add black pepper, coarse sea salt, and butter.
Keep hot without boiling.
Cook the hash
Chop veal finely and mix with stale bread crumbs.
Place mixture in a pan and pour gravy over it.
Simmer for 10 minutes.
Serve the hash on buttered toast.
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.
-
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,056 recipes
Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
-
Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Forms the meaty body of the hash, the main protein everything else is built around.
- Stale bread crumbs
- Absorb the gravy and bind the chopped veal into a cohesive, spoonable mixture.
- Flour
- Thickens the boiling water into a gravy that clings to the veal and crumbs.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, glossy finish to the gravy.
The step that matters
Keep the gravy hot without boiling. Once flour is cooked into liquid it has thickened, and continued vigorous boiling can break down the starch and leave the gravy thin. Holding it just below a boil keeps the texture smooth and stable, and keeps butter from separating into greasy droplets.
“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.
More veal hash recipes
You might also like
Brown Bread461 recipes
White Bread80 recipes
Bread Omelette60 recipes
Oatmeal Bread51 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.