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Fricandeau of Veal

A veal fricandeau braised with vegetables, bacon, herbs, and stock, then finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim the veal into an oblong or oval shape.

  2. Lard the veal thickly with thin strips of bacon.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, combine the sliced carrots, turnips, onions, bacon, meat trimmings, sweet herbs, bay leaves, and white pepper.

  2. Place the fricandeau on top of the vegetables.

  3. Pour in the stock.

  4. Cover the stewpan.

  5. Bring the contents to a boil.

  6. Reduce the heat.

  7. Simmer gently until the meat is tender.

  8. Baste the fricandeau frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the fricandeau in a preheated oven to crisp the bacon.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Skim off the fat.

  4. Boil the gravy quickly.

  5. Add glaze for basting until glossy.

  6. Serve the fricandeau with the larded side up.

  7. Accompany with a purée of seasonal vegetables.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

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

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 dish and becomes tender through slow, gentle simmering.
Bacon
Lardoon strips add fat and flavour inside the lean meat and crisp in the oven.
Carrots
Sweetness and aroma flavour the braising liquor and gravy as they cook.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the stock and gravy as they braise.
Stock
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the veal and becomes the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until tender. Boiling hard toughens the lean veal muscle and dries the surface, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue soften slowly and keeps the meat moist.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, turnip, onion, meat):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip, onion, meat. 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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