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Knuckle of Veal En Ragout

A slow‑cooked veal ragout flavored with celery, thyme, parsley, cayenne, mace, and optional peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Knuckle of Veal En Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the flesh of a knuckle of veal into small thick slices.

  2. Season the slices with a little fine salt and white pepper.

  3. Lightly flour the slices.

  4. Fry the slices in butter until pale brown.

Make the ragout

  1. Lay the slices into a very clean stewpan or saucepan.

  2. Cover the slices with boiling water.

  3. Skim the surface clean.

  4. Add to the liquid a faggot of thyme and parsley, the white part of a head of celery, a small quantity of cayenne, and a blade or two of mace.

  5. Stew the mixture very softly from an hour and three quarters to two hours and a half.

Finish the gravy

  1. Thicken and enrich the gravy if needed with rice‑flour and mushroom catsup or Harvey’s sauce, or with a large teaspoonful of flour mixed with a slice of butter, a little good store‑sauce and a glass of sherry or Madeira.

  2. (Optional) Add fried forcemeat balls of No. 1, Chapter VIII at pleasure.

  3. (Optional) Add an additional quantity of water or broth (made with the bones of the joint) and a pint and a half of young green peas stewed with the veal for an hour to give an agreeable variety.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

580Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
100 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
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 Eliza Acton. 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  3. Celery + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,193 recipes

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

  4. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal (in the method)
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing and gives the ragout its body.
Flour
Coats the slices so they brown in butter and later helps thicken the gravy.
Butter
Fat that browns the floured veal, adding color and a rich savory flavor.
Celery
Adds a mild aromatic savory flavor to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew very softly. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the veal break down into gelatin for tender meat and a silky gravy. A hard boil toughens the meat and can make the gravy cloudy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, flour, butter, thyme, parsley, mace):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, flour, butter, thyme, parsley, mace. 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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