Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Fricandeau of Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the veal
Cut a piece of veal from the leg, 8 inches long, with equal width and depth.
Make a hole in the underside and fill it with forcemeat; sew it up.
Lard the top and sides.
Cover with bacon slices.
Cover with white paper.
Braise
In a saucepan, combine mutton, onions, carrot, sweet herbs, and stock.
Add the veal, cover the pan, and stew for 3 hours.
Remove the veal, strain the gravy, and discard the fat.
Add lemon pickle and white wine to the gravy.
Boil quickly to a glaze.
Glaze and serve
Keep the fricandeau warm over hot water and covered.
Glaze the fricandeau.
Serve with the remaining glaze poured around it.
Serve sorrel sauce in a sauce tureen.
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.
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Carrot + lemontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,351 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,832 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
-
Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,535 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Veal + muttontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,394 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly until tender.
- Stock
- Provides the liquid that stews the veal and forms the base of the gravy.
- Onions
- Add savoury sweetness and flavour to the braising liquid as they cook down.
- White wine
- Adds acidity and aroma to the gravy as it reduces.
- Mutton
- Contributes rich, savoury meat flavour to the braising liquid.
The step that matters
Boil the gravy quickly to a glaze. The gravy must reduce until it thickens and turns syrupy so it clings to the veal. Boiling too gently leaves it thin, while overreduction can make it salty and sticky.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mutton, onion, carrot, white wine):
- Lemonthe original
- Grapefits about as well
- Plumfits about as well
- Applefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mutton, onion, carrot, white 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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