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Fricandeau De Veau

A veal fillet larded with bacon, simmered with vegetables and stock, finished with a potato flour glaze and served over greens.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricandeau De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Lard the veal fillet with small bacon and tie it tightly.

  2. In a stewpan, place sliced carrots, onion with cloves, bouquet garni, bacon rinds, lean bacon, salt, and pepper.

  3. Put the veal on top and add stock.

Braise

  1. Simmer gently for 3 hours, turning halfway and basting with gravy.

  2. Once done, remove the veal and strain the gravy.

Glaze and serve

  1. Skim off the fat and return the gravy to the stewpan, boiling it to a glaze.

  2. Dissolve potato flour in a little water and add to the gravy, boiling for 1 more minute.

  3. Paint the fricandeau with the glaze and serve on a bed of finely chopped spinach or sorrel.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Potato + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of veal
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Bacon
Larding and rinds add fat and savoury flavour to the meat and gravy.
Stock
Provides the liquid that becomes the gravy for braising and glazing.
Potato flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it clings to the veal as a glaze.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the braising liquid that forms the gravy.

The step that matters

Boiling the gravy to a glaze. Reducing the strained gravy concentrates its gelatin and flavour, so it coats the veal in a glossy layer. Skimming fat first keeps the glaze clean rather than greasy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, onion, pepper, potato, flour, spinach):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, pepper, potato, flour, spinach. 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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