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Fillet of Veal, Stewed White

Veal fillet stewed slowly in water with vegetables and spices, served with fried herb balls and a cream white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Fillet of Veal, Stewed White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Mix bread crumbs with suet, parsley, onion, lemon-thyme, lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Moisten some of the dressing.

  3. Form the moistened dressing into small balls.

  4. Roll the balls in grated bread.

  5. Fry the balls in deep lard.

Stew the veal

  1. Skewer the fillet.

  2. Place the fillet in a kettle with a plate underneath to prevent sticking.

  3. Add sliced carrot, onion, peppercorns, salt, and mace.

  4. Cover with cold water and stew slowly.

  5. When done, strain a pint of the liquid for gravy.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour rubbed smooth with butter.

  2. Add enough cream to achieve a rich white sauce.

  3. Garnish the veal with the fried balls and thin slices of lemon.

  4. Pour the gravy over the veal.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Bind the dressing and form the body of the stuffing balls.
Suet
Adds fat to the dressing, keeping the balls moist and rich.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the veal.
Butter
Adds richness and, rubbed into the flour, helps it blend smoothly into the gravy.
Cream
Adds richness and body, turning the gravy into a white sauce.
Veal fillet (in the method)
Main meat, cooked gently by stewing so it becomes tender.

The step that matters

Stew slowly under cold water. Starting in cold water and simmering gently keeps the meat tender and juicy. Boiling hard toughens muscle fibers and makes the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, parsley, lemon, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, parsley, lemon, thyme, nutmeg, pepper, carrot. 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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