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To Mince Veal

A veal mince flavored with nutmeg, lemon peel, and sea salt, served over toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Mince Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Finely cut the veal without chopping it.

  2. Grate nutmeg over the veal and add finely shredded lemon peel.

  3. Sprinkle a little coarse sea salt and dust with flour.

Cook the veal

  1. In a pot, bring 4-5 tablespoons of water to a boil.

  2. Add the veal and a piece of butter, stirring well.

  3. Once heated through, remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Toast the bread until brown and cut into triangles.

  2. Arrange the toasted bread around a plate and pour the veal mixture in.

  3. Squeeze in half a lemon or add half a tablespoon of vinegar before serving.

  4. Garnish with additional 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in water and butter until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the cooked veal a smoother, more rounded mouthfeel.
Flour
Dusted over the veal, it helps thicken the cooking liquid into a light coating.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and a touch of acidity to the veal.
Bread
Toasted and cut into triangles, it gives a crisp base that holds the veal mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the veal through without overcooking. Veal is lean and can turn dry and tough when overheated, so it should be removed from heat as soon as it is warmed through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, nutmeg, flour, butter, egg, bread, vinegar):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, flour, butter, egg, bread, vinegar. 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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