Name: Veal Scallop with Cream Sauce
Ingredients: 3 pounds veal steak, cut into pieces of uniform size; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Black pepper, to taste; 2 tablespoons butter, for cooking; 1 tablespoon butter, for sauce; 1 tablespoon flour; ½ pint white stock or ½ pint rich cream; 2 egg yolks; 2 tablespoons cream, for egg mixture

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Scallop with Cream Sauce

Ingredients

3 pounds veal steak, cut into pieces of uniform size
Coarse sea salt, to taste
Black pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons butter, for cooking
1 tablespoon butter, for sauce
1 tablespoon flour
½ pint white stock or ½ pint rich cream
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons cream, for egg mixture

Directions

Cook the veal

Season the veal pieces with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a chafing dish.
Cook the veal for 10 minutes.
Remove the veal to a hot platter, arranging it in a circle.

Make the sauce

In the same dish, blend 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of flour.
Add ½ pint of white stock or rich cream.
Cook the sauce slowly for 10 minutes.
Beat the yolks of 2 eggs with 2 tablespoons of cream and 1 tablespoon of butter.
Add the egg mixture to the sauce.
When the sauce is hot, pour it over the veal.

Serve

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Veal steak: Forms the main body of the dish, cooked quickly in butter to stay tender and browned.
Flour: Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Egg yolks: Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a richer texture and color.
White stock or rich cream: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding body and flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the egg mixture to the sauce. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the sauce is too hot, so the sauce should be hot but not boiling when they are added and heated gently.

“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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Veal Scallop with Cream Sauce