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Fricassee of Veal

A veal dish simmered in butter, flour, wine, cream, and spices, finished with an egg yolk custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan and mix in flour.

  2. Add salt, mace, lemon rind, and white pepper; mix well.

  3. Pour in white wine and simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Stir in cream and add veal after 5 more minutes; remove lemon rind.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat egg yolks and grate nutmeg into them.

  2. Take a tablespoon of sauce from the pan and mix with the egg yolks.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the sauce in the pan, moving it around without a spoon.

  4. After 2 minutes, serve with sliced lemon around.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Forms the base of the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cream into a smooth, coating sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it simmers.
Cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when gently combined with it.
Veal
Is the main meat, gently warmed in the creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Combining the egg yolks with the sauce. Egg yolks set at low heat and can scramble if they meet hot sauce too quickly. Tempering with a spoonful of sauce first, then stirring gently off strong heat, keeps the sauce smooth and thickened.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, mace, lemon, white wine, cream, veal):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mace, lemon, white wine, cream, veal. 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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