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Boiled Breast of Veal with Onion Sauce

A veal breast boiled with onion, celery, and herbs, finished with a cream and flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 12,525 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Boiled Breast of Veal with Onion Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Combine veal, water, onion, celery, white pepper, and salt in a pot and bring to a gentle simmer.

  2. Cover with hot water and stew until the veal is tender.

  3. Remove any skin from the veal.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, mix cream, flour, and butter to thicken part of the stock.

  2. Pour the thickened sauce over the veal and serve.

  3. Optionally, add pickled mushrooms or stewed celery to the sauce.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Celery + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,006 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Is the main cut that becomes tender and rich during slow stewing.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and helps form the flour roux.
Cream
Adds body and a silky texture to the thickened sauce.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be cooked into the butter and stock so it swells and thickens smoothly; adding it raw or in clumps leaves lumps and a floury taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

The recipe marks celery as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, white pepper, butter, flour, cream, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, white pepper, butter, flour, cream, mushroom. 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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