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Veal Escalopes with Celery-Sauce

Veal escalopes served with celery sauce, béchamel, Parmesan, breadcrumbs, and browned butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Escalopes with Celery-Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Use cooked veal instead of mutton.

  2. Spread celery sauce over the veal slices.

  3. If any stuffing remains, mince it and mix with the sauce for added flavor.

  4. Add a pinch of sweet herbs and minced cooked bacon if no stuffing is available.

Assemble and brown

  1. Cook and plate as directed, placing a celery purée in the center.

  2. Cover the purée with thick béchamel, smooth it out, and sprinkle with grated Parmesan and bread crumbs.

  3. Add a few bits of butter and brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or under a salamander for a minute.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Celery + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together523 recipes

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

  5. Parmesan cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together577 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the topping brown.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on top, adding savoury flavour and a golden crust.
Thick béchamel
Forms a creamy, binding layer that holds the topping in place.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned surface over the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning under the salamander or in the oven. The topping needs enough heat to brown quickly. Too little heat leaves it pale and soggy, while too much or too long can scorch the crumbs and cheese before the sauce heats through.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce, parmesan cheese, bread, butter):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Celerythe original
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce, parmesan cheese, bread, butter. 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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