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Minced Veal

A dish of minced veal simmered in a gravy of broth, herbs, and cream, served with toast and topped with a poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Minced Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Cut all the meat from the bones of the cold roast veal.

  2. Put the bones, outside slices, and gristly pieces in a saucepan with cold water, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt.

  3. If using, add bacon or ham-bone and omit salt.

  4. Stew for 1 hour, then strain the liquid.

  5. Thicken the strained liquid with flour.

  6. Return to heat and boil for 5 minutes.

  7. Stir in butter.

Make the mince

  1. Mince the cold veal.

  2. Add it to the gravy gradually.

  3. Let it almost boil.

  4. Stir in cream or milk.

  5. Add lemon juice.

  6. Add sherry or Madeira wine.

Serve

  1. Serve the mince in a flat dish or chafing dish.

  2. Surround with triangles of buttered toast.

  3. Top with a poached egg.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Ham + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

Flour and butter 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

Cold roast veal
Supplies the cooked meat that is minced and gently simmered in the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained stock into a smooth gravy as it boils.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished gravy.
Cream or milk
Adds creaminess and softens the gravy's flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury gravy.
Sherry or madeira wine
Adds aromatic depth and a mellow sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Let it almost boil. Once the mince is in the gravy, a hard boil can toughen the meat and can curdle the cream or milk. Keeping it just below the boil heats the meat through gently and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Pineapplefits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, ham, flour, butter, cream, sherry. 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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