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Fricandeau De Veau

A veal cutlet stewed with carrots, onions, parsley, mace, lemon thyme, cayenne, salt, peppercorns, and stock, finished with browned larding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fricandeau De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Pound the veal cutlet to smooth it out and remove the skin and gristle.

  2. Lard the top and sides of the cutlet.

Stew

  1. In a stewpan, layer the bottom with sliced carrots, onions, parsley, mace, lemon thyme, cayenne, salt, and peppercorns.

  2. Add a thin layer of fat bacon.

  3. Place the cutlet on top of the bacon layer.

  4. Moisten with enough white stock to cover the vegetables and bacon, but not the meat.

  5. Cover the stewpan.

  6. Stew gently for 3 hours, basting frequently with its own gravy.

  7. About 15 minutes before it's done, add live charcoal on top to brown the larding.

  8. If needed, use a salamander to achieve the desired color.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain off the vegetables.

  2. Serve the fricandeau on a hot dish with vegetable puree, pouring the gravy over it.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlet
Forms the main meat that becomes tender and juicy during gentle stewing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the meat moist as it cooks.
White stock
Provides the cooking liquid that forms the gravy and keeps the meat moist.
Onions
Release sugars and flavour into the stock, building the base of the gravy.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stock and gravy as they cook.

The step that matters

Stew gently with the meat above the liquid. Keeping the liquid below the cutlet and cooking at a low, gentle heat lets the veal braise rather than boil, so it stays tender. Frequent basting with the gravy keeps the surface moist and helps the larded top develop colour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, onion, parsley, lemon, thyme, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, parsley, lemon, thyme, pepper. 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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