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 ↓
Minced Veal
Ingredients
Directions
Make the stock
Simmer the ham, bouquet garni, lemon peel, carrot, and onion in white stock for 2–3 hours.
Strain the mixture into a basin and let it cool.
Remove all the fat from the cooled stock.
Make the sauce
Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the flour and add the stock.
Bring to a boil, skim if necessary, and let cool slightly.
Finish and serve
Stir in the minced veal and gently simmer until warmed through.
Add a spoonful of cream if desired and serve with toasted or fried bread.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Provides the tender meat that forms the body of the ragout.
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and carries flavor as the base for the roux.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
- Lean ham
- Adds savory, salty depth to the stock as it simmers.
- White stock
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the flavor of the dish.
The step that matters
Bring to a boil, skim if necessary, and let cool slightly. Flour thickens the sauce only as it heats and then sets, so the sauce must be brought fully to a boil and allowed to thicken. Skimming removes fat and impurities that would make it greasy or cloudy, and cooling slightly keeps the sauce from breaking before the veal goes in.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, flour, sauce, veal, cream, bread):
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, flour, sauce, veal, cream, 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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