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Veal Stew

A stew of veal strips, potatoes, eggs, and milk thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Place the veal strips in a skillet and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a gentle simmer, ensuring the water does not boil away.

  3. Add the sliced potato and stew for 20 to 30 minutes until the meat is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with a little milk to create a paste.

  2. Once the meat is tender, add the milk and flour mixture to the broth.

  3. Season with butter, salt, pepper, and parsley if desired.

  4. Slice the hard‑boiled eggs and add them to the broth.

  5. Bring to a boil once, then serve with or without toast.

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

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

  2. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in water.
Potato
Thickens the broth slightly as it cooks and adds body to the stew.
Eggs
Add richness and a soft, firm texture when sliced into the warm broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mellows the broth's flavour when combined with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk and broth, giving the stew a smoother, lightly thickened body.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk paste. Flour mixed into a paste with a little milk first disperses evenly; added directly to hot liquid it clumps. Stir it in once the meat is tender so the broth thickens smoothly.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, potato, egg, milk, flour, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, potato, egg, milk, flour, butter, pepper. 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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