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Blanquette of Veal

A veal stew simmered in white stock or cream, finished with a velvety egg yolk sauce and fresh herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Blanquette of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Start the sauce

  1. Put the slices of veal in a saucepan and stir well with a spoon.

  2. Add the white stock or cream gradually, stirring constantly.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Build the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, boil the veal broth.

  2. Pour the sauce over the meat.

  3. Remove the parsley.

  4. Leave the stewpan on the fire for a few minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the meat on a hot dish.

  2. In a basin, mix the yolks of eggs with a few drops of vinegar.

  3. Add the egg mixture to the hot sauce without boiling.

  4. Stir the sauce thoroughly.

  5. Pour the sauce over the meat.

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

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

  2. Parsley + artichoketop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Mushroom + artichoketop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together447 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

White stock or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it its smooth, creamy body.
Veal broth
Adds savoury meaty flavour to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the sauce as they gently set with heat, giving it a velvety texture.

The step that matters

Add the egg mixture to the hot sauce without boiling. Egg yolks thicken by gently coagulating. If the sauce boils after they are added, the proteins tighten too far and the sauce can curdle or turn grainy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, pepper, parsley, veal, mushroom, artichoke, egg. 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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