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Blanquette De Veau

A veal stew made with butter, flour, stock, eggs, cream, and herbs, finished with nutmeg or lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Blanquette De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a stewpan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour, salt, pepper, parsley, and thyme; stir to combine.

  3. Add the veal and moisten with stock.

  4. Simmer until the veal is cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the cream.

  2. Before serving, stir the egg and cream mixture into the stew.

  3. Garnish with grated nutmeg or lemon peel for extra flavor.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  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 protein, which becomes tender as it simmers in the stock.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the butter.
Eggs
Set gently with the cream when stirred in, enriching and thickening the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture when combined with the eggs.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and forms the base roux with the flour.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg and cream mixture into the stew. Eggs thicken when heated, but if the stew is too hot they can scramble and curdle. Keep the heat low and stir steadily so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, pepper, parsley, 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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