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To Mince Veal

Finely cut cold veal simmered gently with lemon peel, nutmeg, salt and broth, milk or water, served on toasted bread triangles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Mince Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Finely cut the cold veal without chopping it.

Cook

  1. Add lemon peel, nutmeg, salt, and broth, milk, or water.

  2. Simmer gently with the meat, avoiding boiling.

  3. Rub butter into flour and add to the mixture.

Serve

  1. Arrange triangular sippets of toasted bread around the dish.

  2. For garnish, lightly strew fried bread crumbs over the top.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the dish, giving it its meaty texture.
Butter
Rubbed into flour to add richness and help thicken the mixture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the mixture becomes smooth and cohesive.
Broth, milk, or water
Provides moisture so the minced meat stays tender while simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, avoiding boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and can cause the mixture to separate or dry out, so gentle heat keeps the veal tender and the liquid smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, nutmeg, milk, butter, flour, bread, mushroom):

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, milk, butter, flour, bread, mushroom. 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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