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A Veal Hash

A dish of veal strips fried with butter, then simmered in a sauce of water, catsup, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Veal Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut veal into strips.

  2. Flour the veal and fry in butter until light brown.

  3. Remove the veal and pour in a little water.

Season and finish

  1. Season the water with coarse sea salt, catsup, black pepper, and lemon juice.

  2. Return the veal to the pan and heat until hot.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Is the main protein, cut into strips and browned for flavour and texture.
Flour
Coats the veal so it browns in the butter and helps thicken the pan juices.
Butter
Fries the floured veal, adding browning and rich flavour.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the seasoned pan liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the seasoned pan liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the floured veal. Frying the flour-coated veal in butter until light brown drives the Maillard reaction, building savoury flavour and a seared surface. Overcrowding the pan or stopping too early leaves the meat pale and flat-tasting.

“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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