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Roast Veal

A veal fillet roasted with a fowl‑style dressing, tied with string, and basted with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Veal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prepare the dressing as you would for fowls.

  2. Stuff the dressing into the cavity where the bone was removed.

  3. Tie the fillet with white string to keep its shape.

Roast

  1. Roast the veal in an oven at 400°F (200°C) without water in the pan.

  2. Roast for about three hours, basting frequently with butter.

  3. Just before it's done, sprinkle a little flour and rub with butter for a frothy appearance.

  4. Serve with sliced lemons.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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 fillet
Forms the main meat that is roasted and served.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture during basting and helps the surface brown.
Flour
Dusted on near the end, it helps create a frothy, golden surface when rubbed with butter.

The step that matters

Basting with butter during the roast. Basting repeatedly over about three hours adds fat to the surface, which keeps the meat from drying out and promotes even browning, since the fillet is roasted without water in the pan.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, 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.

More roast veal recipes

Fillet 39Loin 30Neck 13Breast 11Pot 3Chump 3 See all 78 →

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