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Fricandeau of Veal

A slow‑cooked veal shoulder stew with onions, carrot, herbs, bay leaves, smoked meat, pepper, and salt, finished with a glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Fricandeau of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the veal shoulder and shape it into a smooth piece.

  2. Poke the meat thickly with a fork.

Stew

  1. Place the veal in a stewpan with onions, carrot, herbs, bay leaves, smoked meat, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cover with gravy made from the veal trimmings.

  3. Stew until extremely tender, checking with a skewer.

Glaze and serve

  1. Reduce some of the gravy to a glaze and coat the meat with it.

  2. Serve the glazed meat on a purée of vegetables.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, slow stewing.
Smoked tongue or smoked meat
Adds a smoky, savoury aroma that flavours the stewing liquid and meat.
Gravy made from veal trimmings
Provides moisture and concentrated meaty flavour, reduced later into a glaze.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aromatic depth in the stewing liquid.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the stewing liquid and vegetable purée.

The step that matters

Stew until extremely tender, checking with a skewer. Veal shoulder is rich in connective tissue that needs long, gentle, moist heat to break down into gelatin. Stopping too early leaves the meat tough, while a hard boil can dry and toughen the fibres.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, meat, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, meat, pepper. 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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