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Lettuce Braized, German Style

A German-style braised lettuce dish with veal, pork fat, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lettuce Braized, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lettuce

  1. Prepare the lettuce as in the previous recipe and parboil them.

  2. Immerse the parboiled lettuce in cold water, then press and dry them.

  3. Spread out the leaves of each head on a towel and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Add some forced meat of veal in the middle of each head.

Braise and serve

  1. Reshape the lettuce, trim them, and arrange in a deep flat saucepan lined with thin slices of fat pork.

  2. Moisten with veal gravy, cover the saucepan, and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  3. Occasionally sprinkle with gravy to ensure they glaze nicely.

  4. Once cooked, dish them up, strain off the gravy, remove the grease, and serve the gravy with the lettuce.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Lettuce + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuce
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and soft through parboiling and braising.
Forced meat of veal
Provides a savoury, rich filling that flavours the centre of each lettuce head.
Fat pork
Lines the pan and releases fat that keeps the lettuce moist and adds savour.
Veal gravy
Moistens the lettuce during braising and forms a glaze that adds flavour and sheen.

The step that matters

Occasionally sprinkle with gravy. Basting keeps the surface moist so it does not dry out in the oven, and repeated gravy builds a glossy, flavourful glaze as the liquid reduces.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, pepper, meat, veal, pork):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pepper, meat, veal, pork. 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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