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To Fry Cold Veal

Fried veal pieces coated in bread crumbs, herbs, and lemon peel, served with a lemon‑infused gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Fry Cold Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the cold veal into pieces about ½ inch thick and as long as desired.

  2. Dip the pieces in the egg yolk, then coat with bread crumbs mixed with sweet herbs and shredded lemon peel.

  3. Grate a little nutmeg over the coated veal.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fresh butter in a pan until hot, then fry the veal pieces until golden.

  2. Remove the fried veal with a fork and place it in a dish near the fire.

  3. In the same pan, shake in some flour and stir it around.

  4. Add a little gravy, squeeze in some lemon juice, and pour it over the veal.

  5. Garnish with lemon slices.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the veal during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the veal while it fries.
Fresh butter
Fries the coated veal, adding fat for browning and rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices with the gravy to form a smooth sauce.
Lemon for squeezing
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and balances the rich fried veal.

The step that matters

Fry the veal until golden. Butter that is hot enough browns the crumb coating quickly. If the pan is not hot, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy, and the veal may cook through before it browns.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, bread, nutmeg, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, bread, nutmeg, butter, flour. 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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