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Stewed Breast of Veal and Peas

A stew of veal breast pieces simmered with herbs, spices, and green peas, finished with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Stewed Breast of Veal and Peas

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the breast in half, remove the bone underneath, and divide the meat into convenient-sized pieces.

  2. Put butter into a frying pan, lay in the pieces of veal, and fry until a nice brown colour.

Stew the veal

  1. Place the browned veal in a stewpan with the herbs, mace, cloves, onions, lemon peel, allspice, and seasoning.

  2. Pour just enough boiling water over the veal to cover the meat.

  3. Close the lid and let the stew simmer very gently for about 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain off as much gravy as is required.

  2. Thicken the strained gravy with butter and flour.

  3. Add the remaining ingredients (sherry, tomato sauce, lemon juice, mushroom ketchup, green peas) to the gravy.

  4. Skim the gravy well and let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

  5. Pour the gravy over the veal.

  6. Boil green peas separately and sprinkle them over the veal before serving.

  7. Garnish with forcemeat balls or bacon rashers if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

203Calories
11 gProtein
6 gFat
23 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 11 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast (in the method)
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow, gentle simmering.
Butter (in the method)
Browns the veal in the pan and enriches the flour-thickened gravy.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the meat.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savoury flavour to the gravy.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and savoury depth to the gravy.
Green peas (in the method)
Add sweetness and fresh colour when sprinkled over the finished veal.

The step that matters

Frying the veal until nicely browned. Browning creates savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stopping early leaves the meat pale and the gravy flat-tasting.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sherry, tomato, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, parsley):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sherry, tomato, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, parsley. 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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