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Blanquette of Veal

A veal stew with butter, flour, water, onion, carrot, egg yolks, cream, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Blanquette of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the veal

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a frying pan. Add the veal.

  2. Cook slowly for 30 minutes, turning often.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter in a stew pan. Stir in flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add cold water, onion, carrot, salt, and pepper to the roux. Stir well.

  3. Add veal to the gravy. Simmer for another 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in beaten egg yolks and cream. Cook for 1 minute.

  2. Remove from heat. Add lemon juice.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during slow cooking in the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and cooks with the flour to form the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter to form a roux.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken by setting when heated, so they can curdle if the sauce is too hot. Cook gently and remove from heat promptly, as the record directs, to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

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