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Veal Tendrons, with Cucumber Sauce

Veal tendrons simmered with bacon, carrots, onion, mace, and herbs, served with cucumber sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Tendrons, with Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tendons

  1. Cut the tendons from the breast of veal, removing the dry bone and separating the gristle from the long bones.

  2. Cut the gristle into about eight pieces and place them in a pot of cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil, then transfer the tendons to a bowl of cold water.

Stew

  1. Line a stewpan with slices of fat bacon, trim the tendons, and lay them in the stewpan with the carrots, onion, mace, and sweet herbs.

  2. Cover with more bacon, strain the blanching water over the mixture, and cover with a piece of white paper cut to size.

  3. Stew slowly for about four hours.

Glaze and serve

  1. Once done, transfer the tendons to a small sauté pan with thin glaze to warm them.

  2. Arrange the tendons around the dish and serve with cucumber sauce or any other sauce.

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. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Veal + carrottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,015 recipes

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

  4. Onion + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of veal (tendons)
Forms the main body of the dish; slow stewing turns its connective tissue tender and rich.
Fat bacon
Lines and covers the pot, adding fat and savoury flavour as the tendons stew.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and depth to the stewing liquid.
Thin glaze
Adds gloss and concentrated meaty flavour when the tendons are warmed before serving.

The step that matters

Stewing slowly for about four hours. Collagen in the tendons breaks down into gelatin only with long, gentle heat. Boiling or rushing leaves the meat tough and stringy, so the liquid should barely simmer.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion. 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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