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Veal

A roasted veal fillet stuffed with fine stuffing, basted with butter, served with lemon and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the fillet, then remove the bone.

  2. Fill the space with fine stuffing.

  3. Skewer the stuffed fillet into a round shape.

Roast

  1. Prepare a strong fire.

  2. Place the roast at a distance from the fire.

  3. Baste the roast frequently with butter.

  4. Halfway through roasting, cover the fat with white paper, then remove the paper.

  5. Sprinkle the roast with salt.

  6. Dredge the roast with flour.

  7. Baste the roast again.

  8. Pour finely melted butter over the roast.

Serve

  1. Garnish the roast with cut lemon.

  2. Serve with a slice of toasted bread topped with kidney fat, salt, and pepper.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Veal fillet
The main lean meat, which stays tender when roasted gently away from strong heat.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the surface brown as it bastes the roast.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps form a browned, crisp outer crust.

The step that matters

Place the roast at a distance from the fire. Heat that is too close scorches the outside before the centre cooks through. A gentler distance lets heat reach the middle evenly, keeping the meat tender and the fat from burning.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, bread):

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

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