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Fricassee of Veal

A veal fricassee with cream, egg yolks, lemon, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,446 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fricassee of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Heat a pan and add the cutlets without allowing them to color.

  2. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  3. Gradually pour in enough boiling veal gravy to almost cover the cutlets.

  4. Stew gently for 15-16 minutes or until tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add mace, salt, cream, egg yolks, and lemon juice.

  2. Stew strips of lemon rind in the gravy if desired.

  3. Add mushroom buttons 20 minutes before serving.

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. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce around the cutlets.
Veal gravy
Provides the main liquid and savoury meat flavour for the stew.
Rich cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, velvety body.
Mushroom buttons
Add earthy flavour and a tender, meaty texture to the stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and egg sauce.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks and cream off the heat-level simmer. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle if they boil. Keeping the sauce gently stewing rather than boiling keeps it smooth and thickened.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, veal, cream, egg, mushroom. 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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