Skip to main content
Main

Mince Veal in a Gratin

A gratin of minced veal mixed with béchamel sauce, topped with bread crumbs and clarified butter, then browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Mince Veal in a Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the minced veal as per the previous recipe.

  2. Mix in some good béchamel sauce.

  3. Pour the mixture into a dish.

Top and brown

  1. Sprinkle bread crumbs over the top.

  2. Drizzle a little clarified butter over the crumbs.

  3. Add more bread crumbs on top.

  4. Use a salamander to brown the top until golden.

  5. Serve immediately.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

  4. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Minced veal
Forms the main body of the gratin, giving it a meaty texture.
Béchamel sauce
Adds moisture and a creamy binding that keeps the veal tender.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns under heat and protects the surface from drying.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the crumbs brown evenly and gives a rich flavour.

The step that matters

Browning the top with a salamander. The top must turn golden without overcooking the veal beneath. Clarified butter has no milk solids, so it browns crumbs evenly without burning as readily as whole butter, and the surface browns through Maillard reactions at high heat.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes