Name: Veal Steak
Ingredients: 1 pound veal steak; ¼ cup butter; 1 onion

Why it works: Butter and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Veal Steak

Ingredients

1 pound veal steak
¼ cup butter
1 onion

Directions

Cook

Melt the butter in a skillet.
Brown the onion in the melted butter.
Add the veal steak and cook slowly until done.

Serve

Make gravy with either milk or water just before serving.

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.

Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steak: Is the main protein, cooked slowly until done so it stays tender and cooked through.
Butter: Fat that carries the heat and adds richness, and helps the onion brown in the pan.
Onion: Browns in the butter to add savoury sweetness and aroma to the dish.