Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Veal Scallop
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a buttered dish, layer finely chopped cold veal, seasoning with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and adding small bits of butter.
Sprinkle a layer of finely powdered crackers over the veal.
Pour a little milk over the crackers to moisten them.
Add another layer of veal and repeat the process until the dish is full.
Wet the layers well with gravy and warm water.
Cover the dish with a tin pan to retain steam and bake.
Remove the cover 10 minutes before finishing to allow browning.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, butter, milk):
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Sagefits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Thymefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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