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 ↓
Hashed or Minced Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Cut the veal into slices and mince it as fine as possible without chopping.
Place the minced veal in a stew pan with a few spoons of veal or mutton broth.
Add minced lemon peel, milk or cream, and thicken with butter and flour.
Season with coarse sea salt, lemon pickle or basil wine, and curry powder.
If you don't have cream, beat the yolks of two eggs with a little milk.
Line a dish with sippets of lightly toasted bread.
Transfer the mixture into the dish, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and a little butter.
Brown in a Dutch oven or cheese toaster.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, butter, flour, bread):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, butter, flour, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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