Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓
Sauce for Hashed or Minced Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Dredge the veal bones with flour and place them in a stew pan.
Add broth or water, onion, lemon peel, salt, and mace.
To thicken, rub flour into butter and stir into the broth.
Bring to a gentle boil for about 30 minutes, then strain through a sieve.
Warm the veal by placing the stew pan by the fire.
Serve
Squeeze in lemon juice and cover the bottom of the dish with toasted bread sippets.
Garnish with slices of ham or bacon.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,676 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Thickens the broth into a smooth, sauce-like body when cooked with butter.
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce with fat, adding smoothness and a rounder mouthfeel.
- Veal bones
- Release gelatin and flavour into the broth as it simmers, giving the sauce body.
- Broth or water
- Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the bones flavour.
The step that matters
Thickening the broth with flour and butter. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps; rubbing it into butter first coats the starch grains so they disperse evenly and thicken smoothly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, onion, lemon, butter, bread, ham):
- Parsleyfits better
- Capersfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, onion, lemon, butter, bread, ham. 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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