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Blanquettes De Veau

A veal dish simmered in velouté sauce with egg yolks, lemon, butter, parsley, and young onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Blanquettes De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the roasted veal into pieces and flatten them with a knife.

  2. Remove the brown skin and mince it.

Finish the sauce

  1. Reduce the velouté sauce and add the veal without boiling.

  2. Thicken the sauce with enough egg yolks.

  3. Add lemon juice and a bit of butter.

  4. Stir in minced parsley and young onions, then serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 meat, which stays tender when gently warmed in the sauce.
Velouté sauce
Forms the creamy base that coats the veal and carries the other flavours.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, adding richness and body.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances its fat.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the sauce a smooth texture and rounded flavour.
Young onions
Add a mild sharpness and aroma to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the sauce boils they curdle and turn grainy. Keep the sauce hot and below a boil so it thickens smoothly and stays silky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce, egg, lemon, butter, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce, egg, lemon, butter, parsley. 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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