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Fricandeau De Veau

A slow‑cooked veal stew with bacon, carrots, onions, bouquet garni, and a potato‑flour glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricandeau De Veau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Lard the veal with small pieces of bacon and tie it tightly.

  2. In a stewpan, place sliced carrots, onion with cloves, bouquet garni, bacon rinds, lean bacon, salt, and pepper.

  3. Put the veal on top, add stock, and simmer gently for 3 hours, turning halfway and basting with gravy.

Make the glaze

  1. Once done, remove the veal and strain the gravy, skimming off the fat.

  2. Return the gravy to the stewpan, boil to a glaze, and stir in potato flour dissolved in water.

  3. After boiling for 1 minute, coat the veal with the glaze.

Serve

  1. Serve the veal on a bed of finely chopped spinach or sorrel mixed with the remaining glazed gravy.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Potato + spinachtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Is the lean meat that is braised slowly and glazed as the main dish.
Stock
Braising liquid that becomes the gravy, giving the veal moisture and savory flavor.
Potato flour
Thickens the strained gravy into a glossy glaze that clings to the veal.
Bacon
Larding and rinds add fat and savory flavor to the veal and braising gravy.
Carrots and onion
Aromatic vegetables that build sweetness and depth in the braising gravy.

The step that matters

Boiling the strained gravy to a glaze with potato flour. Starch thickens only when it reaches a boil, and boiling for the full minute fully cooks the flour so it sets glossy rather than tasting raw or staying thin. Skimming the fat first keeps the glaze clean.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, onion, pepper, potato, flour, spinach):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, pepper, potato, flour, spinach. 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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