Name: Hashed Veal
Ingredients: cold veal from a roast, chopped; 3 eggs, beaten; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon butter; water, as needed; 12 slices of toast, slightly moistened and buttered; fried potatoes, for serving

Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Hashed Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop the cold pieces of veal from a roast.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and add pepper, salt, butter, and enough water to make a moist hash.

Cook and serve

Cook the mixture in a pan for a few minutes.
Turn the hash onto the prepared toast.
Serve with a dish of fried potatoes.

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.

Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,845 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the chopped veal together and set as the mixture cooks, holding the hash in shape.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor and helps the hash brown in the pan.
Cold veal: Provides the main meat and savory flavor of the hash.

“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.