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Blanquette of Veal

A veal dish simmered in white sauce with mushroom ketchup, egg, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,099 recipes mention both. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Blanquette of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine white sauce and mushroom ketchup.

  2. Bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the veal and heat until warmed through.

  2. Stir in the beaten egg and cook until the sauce thickens.

  3. Add lemon juice and serve.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Veal + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Veal + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + ketchuptop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast veal
Provides the meat, which warms through in the sauce without being cooked again from raw.
White sauce
Forms the creamy base that carries moisture and coats the veal.
Egg
Sets when heated and thickens the sauce into a smooth, coating consistency.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savory, umami depth to the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg and cook until the sauce thickens. Egg proteins set with gentle heat. If the sauce is boiling hard or the egg is added too fast, it can curdle or turn grainy instead of smoothly thickening. Stir constantly and keep the heat moderate.

“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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