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Veal Stew

A stew of veal and potatoes thickened with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the veal

  1. Cover the veal with cold water in a pot.

  2. Maintain the water level by adding hot water as it boils away.

  3. Stew the veal until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the sliced potatoes to the stew before the veal is done.

  2. Once everything is cooked, add a little thickening and the butter.

  3. Bring the stew to a boil and serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + potatotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing in water.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the stew slightly as they soften.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished stew.
Thickening agent
Binds the cooking liquid, giving the stew a thicker, glossier body.

The step that matters

Adding the thickening. Thickeners such as cornstarch or flour must be boiled to activate their binding power and need to be stirred in evenly, otherwise they clump or leave the sauce thin and streaky.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, 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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