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Fillet of Veal, Stewed White

A veal fillet stewed with a white gravy, served with fried breadcrumb balls and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 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 veal

  1. Remove the bone from the fillet and stuff it with bread crumbs, suet, parsley, onion, lemon-thyme, lemon peel, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Reserve some stuffing, moisten it, form into small balls, roll in grated bread, and fry in deep lard.

  3. Skewer the fillet and place it in a kettle with a plate underneath to prevent sticking.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. Add sliced carrot, onion, peppercorns, salt, mace, then cover with cold water and let it stew slowly.

  2. Once cooked, strain 1 pint of the liquid for the gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour rubbed smooth with butter, then add enough cream to make it rich and white.

Serve

  1. Garnish the dish with the fried balls and thin slices of lemon, then 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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main meat, which turns tender and moist during slow stewing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the suet and herbs into a light stuffing.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the strained stewing liquor into a smooth gravy.
Butter
Mixed with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy smoothly.
Cream
Adds richness and a white colour to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy with flour rubbed in butter. Flour must be rubbed smooth with butter before adding it to the hot liquor, otherwise it clumps. Cooking out the flour lets it thicken evenly without a raw starchy taste.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, parsley, lemon, thyme, nutmeg, 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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