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Veal Rechauffe

A veal dish baked with a creamy gravy made from milk, butter, flour, Worcestershire sauce, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Veal Rechauffe

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped veal and bread crumbs.

  3. Season with salt and black pepper.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, bring the milk to a boil.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour until smooth, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper, cooking until thickened.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the thickened mixture with the veal and bread crumbs, mixing well.

  2. Transfer to a baking dish and bake until browned and heated through.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Cold veal
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meaty flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the sauce and help bind the veal into a cohesive mixture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it a creamy body.
Butter and flour
Together form a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the butter and flour mixture to the boiling milk. Whisking the flour and butter until smooth before adding it to hot milk prevents lumps, because flour clumps when it meets liquid unevenly. Cooking the sauce until thickened lets the starch swell fully for a smooth, stable texture.

“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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