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Blanquette of Veal

A veal stew cooked in a white sauce with mushrooms, onions, artichokes, and a velvety egg yolk finish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, add the veal and stir well with a spoon.

  2. Gradually add the white stock or cream while stirring continuously.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Transfer to another saucepan and bring to a boil.

  5. Pour the sauce over the meat and remove the parsley.

  6. Leave the stewpan on the heat for a few minutes, then place the meat on a hot dish.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the yolks of eggs with a few drops of vinegar.

  2. Gradually add the egg mixture to the hot sauce without boiling.

  3. Stir the sauce thoroughly and pour it 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

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the gentle simmer.
Yolks of eggs
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy coating when gently heated.
White stock or cream
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and richness.
Artichokes
Add a tender, earthy vegetable element to the stew.
Mushrooms
Add savoury, earthy flavour and a soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the hot sauce. Egg yolks thicken by gently coagulating. If the sauce boils after they go in, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy, so add them gradually and keep the sauce below boiling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cream, pepper, parsley, 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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