Skip to main content
Main

Blanquette of Veal

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 the white sauce and mushroom ketchup.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cut 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 is gently reheated in the sauce rather than cooked through.
White sauce
Forms the creamy base that coats and holds the veal together.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a silky, richer body.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, 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 as they warm, thickening the sauce. If the heat is too high or the egg is added too fast, it can scramble into lumps, so stir steadily and keep the sauce below a hard boil.

“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

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes