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Semels of Farce, with Piquant Sauce

Small meat patties made from veal, chicken livers, ham, marrow, truffles, and shallot, served with piquant sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and liver match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 392 recipes mention both. Both carry enoic acid, which smells butter, cheesy. The science ↓

Semels of Farce, with Piquant Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a stew pan, combine veal, chicken livers, fat ham, lean ham, marrow, truffles, shallot, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until the veal turns white.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Once cooled, pound the mixture in a mortar until fine.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape into small patties (semels) the size of veal semels.

  2. Dip each patty in egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Heat clarified butter in a frying pan and fry the patties until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Arrange the semels around a serving dish and pour the sauce in the center.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Veal + livertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together392 recipes

    Shared aroma: enoic acid (butter, cheesy).

  2. Chicken + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,148 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together815 recipes

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

  5. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Gives the patties their main body and a fine, tender texture once pounded.
Chicken livers
Add richness and a soft, creamy texture to the patty mixture.
Fat ham
Adds fat that keeps the patties moist and adds savoury flavour.
Egg
Binds the coated patties so the bread crumbs adhere during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when the patties are fried.
Marrow
Adds fat and rich flavour that keeps the mixture moist.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture until the veal turns white. Stirring constantly over medium heat cooks the meat evenly and prevents sticking or scorching, so the mixture is fully cooked and ready to pound smooth before shaping.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, chicken, liver, ham, beef, truffle, pepper):

  1. Onionbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusbetter flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, chicken, liver, ham, beef, truffle, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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