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Veal, Roast Fillet of

A roasted veal fillet stuffed with forcemeat, dredged in flour, basted in clarified butter, and served with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal, Roast Fillet of

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the bone from the fillet and lift the skin.

  3. Stuff the fillet with forcemeat and bind it into a round shape.

  4. Dredge the outside with flour and place it at a distance from the fire to start.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste continually for about 3 hours.

  2. Move the fillet closer to the fire for the last 30 minutes to brown it.

  3. Remove the skewers and replace them with a silver one.

Serve

  1. Pour melted butter over the joint and serve with boiled ham, bacon, or pickled pork.

  2. Always serve with a cut lemon.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

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 fillet
Forms the main body of the joint, cooking to tender meat around the stuffing.
Forcemeat
Adds moisture and flavour inside the meat as it cooks.
Flour
Dredged on the outside to help form a browned crust.
Clarified butter
Basting fat that carries heat to the surface and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Moving the fillet closer to the fire. Browning happens at high surface heat, so moving the fillet closer only for the last 30 minutes colours the crust without drying out the interior. Too early or too long risks a burnt, dry exterior.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Peachfits less well

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