Name: Minced Fowl, with Veal
Ingredients: white part of a cold roasted or boiled fowl; thin slices of veal; white stock; juice of 1 lemon; a few drops of shallot vinegar; ¼ teaspoon sugar; bread sippets

Why it works: Lemon and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,523 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Minced Fowl, with Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Mince the white part of the fowl.

Cook and serve

In a saucepan, combine the minced fowl, veal slices, white stock, lemon juice, shallot vinegar, and sugar.
Simmer for a short time.
Serve the mixture on bread sippets, with the veal slices laid on top.

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.

Lemon + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,523 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Shallot + vinegartop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,374 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White part of a cold roasted or boiled fowl: Forms the minced body of the dish, giving it its main texture and savoury flavour.
Thin slices of veal: Adds meaty texture and flavour, and is laid on top as a finishing element.
White stock: Provides liquid that moistens the minced fowl and carries the flavour through the simmer.
Juice of 1 lemon: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the richness of the meat.

“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.