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Veal and Ham

A savory dish of veal and ham simmered in a milk-based sauce with butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal and Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the meat

  1. Cut the edge of fat off the slice of ham.

  2. Heat lard in an iron frying pan.

  3. Cut the veal into small pieces and add to the pan.

  4. While the veal is cooking, cut the ham into small pieces and add to the pan.

  5. Cook slowly for some time.

Make the sauce

  1. Add butter and flour, sieving the flour through the meat.

  2. Pour in the milk and let it boil well.

  3. Season with salt and pepper 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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 when cooked slowly in the pan.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty meat flavour to the dish.
Lard
Fat for frying the meat, helping it brown in the pan.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, buttery flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices and milk into a smoother sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that becomes a creamy sauce around the meat.

The step that matters

Sieving the flour through the meat. Flour sprinkled evenly through the hot fat and meat juices blends in and thickens smoothly. Clumps stay floury and lumpy, so spreading it well matters before the milk goes in.

“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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