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Baked Veal Cutlets

A veal steak baked with butter, onion, parsley, and a simple flour‑based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Veal Cutlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter the bottom of a roasting pan and sprinkle with chopped onion, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  3. Place the veal steak on top, then sprinkle with more chopped onion, parsley, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  4. Dot the steak with 1 tablespoon of butter cut into small pieces.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes.

  2. Remove the steak from the pan and place it on a serving platter.

  3. In the baking pan, add 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of flour; mix thoroughly.

  4. Add ½ pint of water or stock, stirring until thickened.

  5. Season with ½ teaspoon of salt and white pepper to taste, then pour the sauce around the steak and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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 steak
Forms the main cut of meat that is baked until tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the meat and helps form the sauce base.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour that infuses the meat and pan juices as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the water or stock to the butter and flour. Flour must be cooked briefly in fat before liquid is added; stirring as the liquid goes in keeps the mixture smooth instead of lumpy, and the starch thickens as it heats.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, onion, pepper, parsley, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, pepper, parsley, flour. 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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