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Fricandeau of Yeal

A veal fillet braised with vegetables, stock, and herbs, then crisped with bacon and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Yeal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Trim the fillet of veal.

  2. Lard the fillet well with bacon.

  3. Melt the butter in a pan.

  4. Fry the unlarded side of the fillet slightly with the sliced vegetables.

  5. Add the herbs and stock.

Braise

  1. Cover with greased paper.

  2. Place the lid on the pan.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Simmer gently in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until the veal is tender, about 1 to 2 hours.

Glaze and serve

  1. Remove the fillet to a dripping tin.

  2. Strain a little stock over it.

  3. Return to the oven to crisp the bacon, basting until browned.

  4. Strain the remaining gravy.

  5. Remove the fat.

  6. Reduce to half glaze by boiling or thicken with arrowroot.

  7. Season the gravy.

  8. Serve the fricandeau on a slice of bread.

  9. Garnish with boiled carrot and turnip.

  10. Strain the gravy around the dish.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender during slow simmering in stock.
Bacon
Larded through the fillet, it adds fat and flavour and crisps to a browned surface.
Stock
Braising liquid that gently cooks the veal and forms the base of the gravy.
Butter
Fat for frying the vegetables and the unlarded side, adding browning and richness.
Onion
Sliced aromatic vegetable that flavours the braising liquid and gravy.
Arrowroot (in the method)
Starch that thickens the gravy into a glossy sauce if not reduced to a glaze.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat's proteins and can make the fillet dry and stringy. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue soften slowly while the veal stays moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, turnip, pepper, celery, butter, carrot):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, turnip, pepper, celery, butter, carrot. 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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