Name: Veal Escalopes with Celery Sauce
Ingredients: cooked veal; celery sauce; seasoning; puree of celery; thick béchamel; grated Parmesan cheese; bread crumbs; butter

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.

Use cooked veal instead of mutton as directed in Mutton Escalopes A LA SouniSE.
Spread celery sauce over the veal slices.
If available, mince leftover stuffing and mix it with the sauce for added flavor.
If no stuffing, add a pinch of sweet herbs and minced cooked bacon to the sauce.
Place the veal on a serving dish and add a puree of celery in the center.
Pour enough thick béchamel over the puree to cover it completely.
Smooth the béchamel, then sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs.
Dot with butter and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven or under a salamander.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Celery + parmesan cheesetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together523 recipes

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

Swap the celery

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

Capersfits better
Parsleyfits about as well
Celerythe original
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.