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Brown Fricassee of Veal

A veal dish simmered in butter, onions, flour, and broth until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brown Fricassee of Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Cut veal into pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Melt butter in a pan and brown the veal on all sides.

  3. Add chopped onions and cook until soft.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the mixture and stir well.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour in water or broth to cover the meat.

  2. Simmer until the veal is tender.

  3. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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
Is the main protein that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps browning of the meat and onions.
Onions
Soften and add sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce as it combines with fat and broth.

The step that matters

Browning the veal on all sides. Searing the meat in hot butter builds browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stirring too early makes the meat steam instead, leaving it pale and less flavorful.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, 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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