Name: Fricandeau
Ingredients: veal; lardoons; sorrel; cucumbers; spinach; gravy

Why it works: Sorrel and spinach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 204 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fricandeau

Ingredients

Directions

Lard the veal with lardoons.
Cook the veal in a stewpan for 10 to 15 minutes to firm it up.
Remove the veal and keep it warm.
Strain and quickly reduce the gravy, skimming off any fat.
Glaze the veal and serve it on a bed of sorrel, cucumbers, or spinach.

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.

Sorrel + spinachtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together204 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sorrel + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together119 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cucumber + spinachtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together355 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Veal + spinachtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together261 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Veal + cucumbertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together439 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).