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Lettuce, Stuffed

Lettuce stuffed with veal forcemeat, simmered in gravy with optional bacon, carrot, onion, cloves, herbs, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Lettuce, Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lettuces

  1. Wash the lettuces and boil them in salted water for 15 minutes.

  2. Transfer them to cold water and let them drain.

  3. Open the lettuces and fill them with veal forcemeat, then tie the ends securely.

Braise and serve

  1. Place them in a stewpan with enough gravy to cover, add salt, pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Simmer gently for another 15 minutes, then remove the strings.

  3. Serve on a hot dish and pour the gravy around them.

  4. For a variation, place the prepared lettuces in a braising pan with bacon, carrot, onion stuck with cloves, sweet herbs, and some gravy, and simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  5. Optionally, add a glass of sherry to the gravy before serving.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together976 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lettuces
Form the outer wrap that holds the forcemeat and becomes tender when simmered.
Veal forcemeat
Provides the savory, moist filling that sets as it cooks inside the lettuce.
Gravy
Keeps the lettuces moist and flavors them as they simmer.
Vinegar
Adds a little acidity that brightens the rich gravy and veal filling.

Swap the carrot

The recipe marks carrot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, pepper, vinegar, veal, onion, clove, sherry):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, pepper, vinegar, veal, onion, clove, sherry. 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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