Skip to main content
Main

To Mince Cold Veal

A cold veal and ham mince served with toasted bread and poached eggs, seasoned with parsley, pepper, sea salt, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Mince Cold Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the veal from the bones and mince it with the ham into small square pieces; set aside.

Make the gravy

  1. Put the bones in a saucepan with the water to make a gravy.

  2. Stew for 1 hour, then strain the liquid.

  3. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and mix well.

  4. Pour the strained gravy into the flour mixture and stir until boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  2. Season with parsley, pepper, coarse sea salt, grated lemon rind, and a little lemon juice.

  3. Add the minced veal and heat until hot.

  4. Serve with small pieces of toasted bread and poached eggs 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.

  1. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the mince and provides the meaty flavour.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the minced meat mixture.
Flour
Thickens the butter and gravy into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour, while helping the flour thicken.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the gravy into the flour mixture until boiling. Flour must be cooked in the hot butter and then whisked with liquid to avoid lumps; boiling fully activates the starch so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes