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Breast of Veal in Hodge Podge

A veal stew with peas, lettuce, mace, peppercorns, sweet herbs, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Breast of Veal in Hodge Podge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the brisket off the breast of veal into small pieces and separate the bones.

  2. Dust the veal pieces with flour.

Brown and stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stew-pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the veal and fry until browned all over.

  3. Pour in boiling water to cover the veal and stir well.

  4. Add the peas, lettuce, mace, pepper, sweet herbs, and onion.

  5. Cover and stew for 1 hour or until the veal is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. If making a sauce, reduce the liquid to your desired quantity and season with salt.

  2. Remove the spices, onion, and herbs before serving.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Lettuce + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  5. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing in liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the veal, helping it brown and carrying flavour.
Flour
Dusted on the veal so it browns and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a soft texture as they cook in the stew.
Lettuce
Softens as it cooks, adding moisture and a mild, delicate flavour to the liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the veal. Frying the floured veal until deeply browned builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale veal leaves the stew tasting flat, so brown it fully in batches rather than crowding the pan.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, peas, lettuce, onion, clove, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, peas, lettuce, onion, clove, flour. 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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