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Veal Mince

A veal mince simmered in a herb‑infused gravy, thickened with butter and flour, seasoned with pepper, nutmeg, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and white pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Veal Mince

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil bones and trimmings with a small bunch of savory herbs, carrot or celery, mace, white peppercorns, and ham in 1½ pints of water for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the gravy, cool it, and remove the fat.

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal small, trimming away gristle and brown edges.

  2. Season veal with salt, white pepper, nutmeg or mace, and lemon rind.

Thicken and serve

  1. Mix flour with butter to thicken the gravy.

  2. Combine veal with gravy and heat gently without boiling.

  3. Serve with pale‑toasted sippets and add cream if desired.

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. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

White veal
Provides the tender meat that forms the body of the mince.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour that binds the veal into a moist dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the veal rather than running thin.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour thicken smoothly into the gravy.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the flavour when added at the end.

The step that matters

Heat gently without boiling. Once the veal is combined with the gravy, boiling can toughen the meat proteins and make the thickened sauce separate or turn grainy. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, meat, carrot, mace, ham, flour, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, meat, carrot, mace, ham, flour, butter. 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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