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Breast of Veal Stewed White

A veal breast stuffed with a forcemeat mixture, boiled, and served with a sauce of oysters, lemon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper 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 ↓

Breast of Veal Stewed White

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Cut a piece off each end of the veal breast.

  2. Boil the sweetbread and chop it finely.

  3. In a bowl, mix the sweetbread, grated bread, beef suet, eggs, milk, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Stuff and cook the veal

  1. Stuff the thin part of the veal breast with the forcemeat.

  2. Form the remaining forcemeat into small balls and fry them.

  3. Skewer the skin of the veal breast closed.

  4. Flour the veal breast.

  5. Boil the veal breast in a cloth in a mixture of milk and water.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make gravy using the cut-off ends of the veal, oysters, lemon juice, and butter rolled in flour.

  2. Place the cooked veal breast on a dish.

  3. Garnish with the fried balls.

  4. Pour the sauce over it.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole in a cloth until tender.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when stuffed and fried.
Beef suet
Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping it moist and rich during cooking.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and gives the forcemeat body and structure.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Coats the veal and thickens the butter into the gravy.

The step that matters

Boil the veal breast in a cloth. Simmering gently rather than boiling hard keeps the meat tender and prevents the stuffing from breaking apart or the cloth wrapping from loosening during cooking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, beef, egg, milk, pepper, oyster):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, beef, egg, milk, pepper, oyster. 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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