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Another Way to Leake a Fricandeau of Veal

A veal meatball dish with kidney fat, lemon, anchovy, and rusks, fried and stewed in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Biscuit and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 889 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Another Way to Leake a Fricandeau of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Combine the chopped veal and kidney fat in a bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with white pepper, coarse sea salt, grated lemon peel, lemon juice, and anchovy.

  3. Soak the rusks in boiling milk.

  4. Mix the soaked rusks into the meat mixture until well combined.

  5. Form the mixture into balls.

Fry and stew

  1. Lightly coat the balls with flour.

  2. Fry the balls in butter until light brown.

  3. Stew the fried balls in highly-seasoned gravy.

Serve

  1. Dish the balls carefully.

  2. Strain the gravy over the balls.

  3. 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. Biscuit + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together697 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + anchovytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together456 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

Flour and butter 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

Lean loin of veal
Provides the main meaty body and tender texture of the meatballs.
Kidney fat
Adds moisture and richness so the meatballs stay juicy when cooked.
Rusks or biscuits
Soaked in milk, they absorb liquid and help bind the meat mixture.
Flour
Forms a light coating that helps the surface brown when fried in butter.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the outside and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Forming and frying the balls. The mixture is soft and fatty, so the balls can break apart if handled roughly. A light flour coat helps them hold their shape and brown evenly in the butter, and gentle handling keeps them intact.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, lemon, anchovy, biscuit, flour, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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