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Hashed Veal

A dish of thin veal slices stewed in gravy, served with forcemeat balls, fried oysters, and brain cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 ↓

Hashed Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into thin round slices, about the size of a half-crown.

  2. Dredge the veal slices with flour.

  3. Season the veal slices with white pepper and coarse sea salt.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the veal in a rich white gravy made from veal, mutton, and a piece of bacon, along with onion and a pinch of mace for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve the veal with the gravy.

  3. Garnish with forcemeat balls, fried oysters, and brain cakes made from brains mixed with grated bread and yolk of egg, fried in butter.

  4. Add wine, truffles, morels, mushrooms, or any other seasoning to taste.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 dish, becoming tender as it stews in the gravy.
Flour
Coats the veal slices, helping the gravy thicken and cling to the meat.
Butter
Adds richness and browning when used to fry the garnishes.
Yolk of egg
Binds the brain cakes so they hold together during frying.
Truffles
Adds a concentrated earthy aroma to the gravy when added to taste.
Morels
Contribute a deep, earthy flavour and aroma to the gravy when added.

The step that matters

Stew the veal in the gravy. Thin slices cook quickly and can toughen or dry if boiled hard. Keeping the gravy at a gentle simmer lets the veal stay tender while the flour-thickened gravy turns smooth and glossy.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, onion, mace, butter, sauce, 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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