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Veal, Fillet Of, with Anchovies

A veal fillet topped with a butter anchovy and parsley mixture, served with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal, Fillet Of, with Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Brush the veal slice with oil and grill or broil it.

Make the anchovy butter

  1. In a mortar, combine anchovies, parsley, and garlic; add lemon zest and pound well.

  2. Sieve the mixture and mix it with the butter.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the butter mixture on a serving dish and top with the grilled veal.

  2. Serve with cut lemon on the side.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 and cooks to a browned, tender surface under the grill or broiler.
Anchovies
Dissolve into the butter, adding deep savoury saltiness and umami without an obvious fishy taste.
Butter
Carries the anchovy, garlic and parsley flavours and adds richness and moisture to the veal.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows during pounding and mixing into the butter.
Lemon zest
Adds bright aromatic acidity that lifts the rich butter and anchovy mixture.

The step that matters

Grilling or broiling the veal. Veal is lean and dries out quickly over high heat. Brushing it with oil before cooking helps prevent sticking and promotes even browning, and removing it once just cooked keeps it moist and tender.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, garlic, lemon, butter, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, garlic, lemon, butter, pepper. 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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