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Fricasseed Veal

A veal fricassee with butter, flour, cream, egg yolks, lemon, and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Fricasseed Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into small, thick slices of equal size.

  2. Melt the butter in a wide stewpan over medium heat until it begins to boil.

  3. Add the veal and cook, shaking the pan often, until firm on both sides without browning.

  4. Stir in the flour until well mixed with the veal.

Stew and finish

  1. Gradually add enough boiling veal gravy to almost cover the veal.

  2. Stew gently for 50 to 60 minutes, or longer until tender.

  3. Add mace, salt, cream, egg yolks, and lemon juice, stirring well.

  4. Optionally, add strips of lemon rind and mushroom buttons 20 minutes before serving.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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 main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries flavour when the veal is first firmed.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy that coats the veal.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in with the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Mushroom buttons
Add earthy flavour and texture to the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce is too hot they can scramble and turn grainy. Stir them in gently off strong heat, and keep the sauce from boiling after they go in.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, cream, egg, mushroom):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

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