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Veal with Mustard Pickles

A stew of veal pieces cooked with onions, flour, stock, bay leaf, pepper, and mustard pickle cubes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal with Mustard Pickles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into small pieces and season lightly with salt.

Make the sauce base

  1. In a kettle, heat butter or meat drippings without browning it.

  2. Add the sliced onion and flour, cooking until yellow while stirring continuously.

  3. Add the veal and cook for five minutes, turning occasionally.

  4. Pour in the stock or hot water with meat extract.

Braise

  1. Add the bay leaf, pepper, and mustard pickles, then cook for five minutes.

  2. Transfer the closed kettle into a 350°F (175°C) oven and cook for 1½ 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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 main meat, which becomes tender during slow cooking in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce once cooked with the fat and onion.
Mustard pickles
Add sharp acidity and a pungent flavour that cuts through the rich meat and sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and cooks into the base of the sauce.
Butter or meat drippings
Carry flavour and help the onion and flour cook evenly without scorching.

The step that matters

Heating the fat without browning it. Gently heated fat lets the flour cook into a smooth roux without scorching, which would give a bitter taste and uneven sauce.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, onion, flour, meat, 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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