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Veal Stew with Pimento

A stew of veal and ham with celery, peas, pimentos, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Stew with Pimento

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Cook the veal and ham with the celery until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Remove the meat and celery, then cut the meat into small pieces.

Finish the stew

  1. Thicken the stock, then return the meat to it.

  2. Add the peas and finely chopped pimentos.

  3. Drop in the eggs and beat well.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Celery + peastop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 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

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long cooking in the stock.
Fresh ham
Adds richer, fuller meat flavour to the stew base.
Eggs
Beaten into the hot stew, they thicken and enrich the liquid.

The step that matters

Drop in the eggs and beat well. Eggs added to hot liquid can scramble into lumps if not beaten in thoroughly. Beating them well spreads the egg evenly, so it thickens the stew smoothly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, celery, egg, pepper):

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Peasthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, celery, egg, 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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