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Veal in Light Gravy with Parsley

Veal in Light Gravy with Parsley is a veal dish simmered in a light gravy flavored with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 in Light Gravy with Parsley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Rub the veal with coarse sea salt and pepper.

  2. Melt the butter in a kettle.

  3. Add the veal and turn it several times.

Make the gravy and cook

  1. Immediately add the stock or boiling water with meat extract.

  2. Stir in the chopped parsley and the dissolved flour.

  3. Boil for a moment, then cover and place in the Caloric for 1 to 1.5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

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
Main protein that becomes tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and helps the veal take on light browning.
Stock
Provides moisture and meaty flavor for the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy as it heats.

The step that matters

Stir in the dissolved flour. Flour mixed into water thickens the liquid as it heats, but if it is added to the pot unevenly or left unstirred it can form lumps. Stirring it in evenly before boiling gives a smooth, light gravy.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, 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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