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Broiled Veal Steak

A veal steak broiled and served with a tomato‑ketchup and onion gravy, topped with butter and accompanied by spinach or sorrel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,370 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Broiled Veal Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Grease a gridiron and place the veal steak on it.

  2. Broil over a clear fire, turning frequently.

Make the gravy

  1. Finely chop the onions.

  2. Sauté the onions in a saucepan with tomato ketchup, thyme, and butter for a few minutes.

  3. Add the broth and boil slowly for 20 minutes.

  4. Stir flour into the gravy.

  5. Add browning and wine.

  6. Boil until thickened.

Serve

  1. Place the veal steak on a hot dish.

  2. Top the steak with a lump of butter.

  3. Pour the gravy over the veal.

  4. Serve with 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. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,759 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,349 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steak
Is the main protein, cooked over direct heat until browned on the outside.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they sauté, adding aromatic flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a gravy as it is stirred in and boiled.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, carrying the other flavours.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the gravy a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil until thickened. Flour needs sustained boiling to swell and gelatinise its starch; if the gravy is not boiled long enough it stays thin and tastes raw-floury.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, tomato, ketchup, thyme, butter, flour, wine):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, tomato, ketchup, thyme, butter, flour, wine. 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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