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Fricassee of Veal

A veal cutlet dish simmered in gravy with flour, cream, egg yolks, lemon, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,446 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fricassee of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Brown the veal cutlets on both sides without allowing them to color.

  2. Stir in the flour until well mixed.

  3. Gradually add enough boiling veal gravy to almost cover the cutlets.

  4. Stew gently for 15-16 minutes or longer until tender.

  5. Add mace, salt, cream, egg yolks, and lemon juice.

  6. Stew strips of lemon rind in the gravy if desired.

  7. Add mushroom buttons 20 minutes before serving.

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. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Thickens the gravy into a smooth, cohesive sauce as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce gently when combined with the cream.
Rich cream
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded texture.
Cutlets of veal
Provide the main protein, becoming tender through gentle stewing.
Mushroom buttons
Add earthy flavour and a soft, meaty texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Adding them off the heat or at a gentle simmer, after the sauce is hot, keeps them smooth and thickening rather than grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, cream, egg, lemon, mushroom):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, cream, egg, lemon, mushroom. 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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