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Breast of Veal Farcie

A veal breast stuffed with kidney, sausage, shallots, parsley, and egg yolks, simmered in stock with herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Breast of Veal Farcie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the gristle from the veal.

  2. Flatten the veal with a rolling pin.

  3. Prepare a filling by mixing the kidney, sausage meat, shallots, salt, pepper, parsley, and boiled egg yolks.

  4. Spread the filling on the veal.

  5. Roll the veal tightly, sew the roll closed, and skewer the roll to secure.

Braise

  1. Place the rolled veal in a stewpan on slices of bacon.

  2. Add stock, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs to the pan.

  3. Cook until the veal is done.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Remove the skewers.

  2. Skim the sauce.

  3. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve.

  4. Stir in flour.

  5. Reduce the sauce.

  6. Serve the sauce around the veal.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Forms the wrapper that holds the filling and becomes tender during slow cooking.
Sausage meat
Adds fat and savoury richness to the filling, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Boiled egg yolks
Bind the chopped filling so it holds together when sliced.
Stock
Provides the liquid for braising and, once reduced, the body of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained stock into a smoother, more cohesive sauce.
Bacon
Lays under the roll, releasing fat and flavour into the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Reduce the sauce. Flour stirred into hot liquid can clump, so it should be well mixed in first. Reducing then concentrates the flavour and thickens the sauce, and simmering gently prevents scorching.

Swap the thyme

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, shallot, pepper, parsley, egg, flour. 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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