Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Fricandeau of Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the veal
Remove the bone from the leg of veal.
Cut out the largest veins.
Clean off the skin.
Keep the meat high in the middle.
Shave it smooth.
Beat the meat with a beater.
Turn it over.
Shape it like the veal bone.
Lard the meat with fat bacon or smoked beef fat.
Braise
Place the veal in a stewpan with cold water, bacon side down.
Skim the surface.
When it simmers, cover.
Let it cook gently for 5 minutes.
Turn it over.
Line a stewpan with slices of fat bacon or ham, carrot, turnip, onion, celery, and sweet herbs.
Place the fricandeau on a drainer in the stewpan.
Cover with bacon slices.
Add second stock.
Cook on low heat for about 3 hours until tender enough to be served with a spoon.
Glaze and serve
Glaze the fricandeau several times before serving.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,418 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Leg of veal
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable after long slow cooking.
- Fat bacon
- Larding and lining add fat that keeps the lean veal moist during long cooking.
- Second stock
- Liquid that gently braises the veal, building flavour and keeping it moist.
- Carrot
- Aromatic vegetable that flavours the braising liquid and the glaze.
- Onion
- Aromatic base that adds savoury depth to the braising liquid.
The step that matters
Gentle simmering. Once the liquid simmers, the heat must stay low. A hard boil toughens the meat's proteins and drives off liquid, while slow gentle cooking breaks down connective tissue so the veal becomes tender.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, carrot, turnip, celery):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Onionthe original
- Spinachfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, carrot, turnip, celery. 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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