Name: Veal Stew
Ingredients: veal meat; butter; seasoning (to taste)

Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Veal Stew

Ingredients

veal meat
butter
seasoning (to taste)

Directions

Boil the veal meat until tender.
Make a gravy and season it well.
Add butter to the gravy.

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.

Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Veal + meattop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,890 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal meat: Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the gravy.

“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.