Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Veal Birds
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the rolls
Cut the veal steak into strips 2 inches wide and pound them slightly.
Sprinkle the strips with salt and pepper, then form them into little rolls.
Wrap a slice of bacon around each roll and secure with a skewer or toothpick.
Brown and simmer
Brown the rolls on all sides in a skillet.
Cover the meat with water and let it simmer for 1½ hours.
Make the gravy
Mix the flour with part of the water to make a slurry, then add it to the cooking liquid to create gravy.
Cook the meat in the gravy for about 10 minutes.
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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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Veal + flourtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,886 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 body of the rolls and becomes tender during the long simmer.
- Bacon
- Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the veal as it cooks.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy when mixed into a slurry.
“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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