Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Blanquette of Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine white sauce and mushroom ketchup, then bring to a boil.
Finish and serve
Add the veal and heat until warmed through.
Stir in the beaten egg and cook until the sauce thickens.
Add lemon juice and serve.
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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Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + ketchuptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cold roast veal
- Provides the main meat; it is already cooked, so it only needs warming through.
- White sauce
- Forms the creamy base and carries moisture through the dish.
- Egg
- Thickens the sauce as its proteins set with gentle heat, giving it body.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.
The step that matters
Stirring in the beaten egg. Egg proteins thicken the sauce when heated gently, but a hard boil or too much heat can scramble them and make the sauce curdle. Keep the heat low and stir steadily.
“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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