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Vienna Steaks

Vienna steaks are finely minced steak and veal cakes fried and served with a stock sauce.

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

Vienna Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the steak and veal very finely.

  2. Add parsley, anchovy essence, lemon juice, egg, pepper, salt, and flour; mix well.

  3. Form the mixture into small round cakes.

  4. Brush the cakes with beaten egg and coat with breadcrumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Heat the stock in a saucepan, add the steaks, and let them simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  3. Mix the flour smoothly with cold water, then pour the hot stock into it.

  4. Return the mixture to the pan, bring to a boil, season, and pour around the steaks when 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them a meaty texture.
Veal
Adds tenderness and mildness to the minced mixture.
Egg
Binds the minced meat together and helps the breadcrumb coating adhere.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Breadcrumbs
Forms a crisp, golden browned crust when fried.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with cold water before adding hot stock. Starch clumps if it meets hot liquid directly. Blending it smoothly into cold water first lets the granules disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

“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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