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Veal

A roasted veal fillet stuffed with fine stuffing, basted with butter, and served with lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the fillet, then remove the bone.

  2. Fill the space with fine stuffing.

  3. Form the stuffed fillet into a round shape, skewering it firmly.

Roast

  1. Prepare a strong fire.

  2. Place the roast at a distance from the fire.

  3. Baste the roast frequently with butter.

  4. When half roasted, cover the fat with white paper.

  5. Remove the paper before serving.

  6. Sprinkle the meat with salt.

  7. Dredge the meat with flour.

  8. Baste to froth it.

  9. Pour finely-melted butter over the roast.

  10. Optionally mix in lemon pickle or brown gravy.

  11. Garnish with cut lemon.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the roast, cooked whole around its stuffing.
Fine stuffing
Fills the cavity left by the removed bone, adding bulk and moisture to the roast.
Butter
Bastes the meat, adding fat for moisture and golden browning.
Flour
Dredged onto the meat, helping form a crisp, browned surface.

The step that matters

Covering the fat with white paper at half roast. Covering the fat at the halfway point slows surface browning so the roast can cook through without burning, and the paper is removed later so the crust can still colour.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour. 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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