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Veal Fillet

A veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat, roasted or stewed with onions, herbs, carrots, cloves, peppercorns, served with gravy or currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal Fillet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the veal fillet.

  2. Fill the cavity with forcemeat, adding minced shallot if desired.

  3. Detach the skin on the flap side to add more forcemeat if needed.

  4. Flour the fillet.

Brown and stew

  1. Roast the fillet, serving with currant jelly and brown gravy, or pour melted butter over it.

  2. Brown the floured fillet in butter.

  3. Stew the browned fillet gently in gravy or water for about 4 hours.

  4. Turn the fillet every hour for even cooking.

  5. Add onions, herbs, sliced carrots, cloves, and peppercorns as 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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Shallot + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Main meat that becomes tender through long, gentle moist cooking.
Flour
Coats the fillet so it browns well and helps thicken the gravy.
Butter
Carries heat for browning and adds richness and savory flavor.
Gravy or water
Provides moisture and cooking liquid for the slow stew.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the stewing liquid.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and color to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for about 4 hours, turning every hour. A low, gentle simmer slowly breaks down connective tissue, making the veal tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and dry the surface, and turning keeps it cooking evenly.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, butter, onion, carrot, clove, currant):

  1. Turnipfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Shallotthe original
  4. Parsnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, onion, carrot, clove, currant. 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.

More veal fillet recipes

Roast 39Boiled 36Roasted 33Stuffed 27Roast 15Baked 13 See all 17 →

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