Why it works: Veal and truffle work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 815 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Directions
Prepare the veal
Remove the chine-bone from the veal.
Cut the bones short.
Slice off the skin and flesh to a depth of ⅛ inch.
Spread 2 ounces of butter and 3 sliced truffles on the veal. Restore the slice to its original position.
Sew it securely with twine.
Braise
Butter a stewpan and cover the bottom with a thin slice of ham.
Place the veal on the ham and surround it with bones, trimmings, carrot, onion, mushroom, sugar, mace, nutmeg, coriander seed, and garlic.
Pour ½ pint of stock or water over the ingredients. Cover the saucepan.
Simmer gently for 2.5 hours. Skim the liquid and baste the meat frequently.
Make the gravy and serve
Remove the veal and keep it hot in the oven.
Skim the fat from the gravy. Strain it through a fine sieve with the vegetables.
Let the gravy boil. Add a glass of sherry or Madeira if desired.
Serve the veal on a dish and pour the gravy over it.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Veal + truffletop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together815 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Truffle + mushroomtop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together1,900 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Butter + mushroomtop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together12,516 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Carrot + clovetop 3% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together4,916 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Carrot + oniontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together21,599 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
- Veal
- Forms the main body of the dish; long, gentle braising makes it tender.
- Truffles
- Contribute a strong earthy aroma that perfumes the meat and gravy.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries the truffle flavour into the meat.
- Stock or water
- Provides the moist braising liquid that becomes the gravy.
The step that matters
Simmer gently for 2.5 hours. A gentle simmer keeps the liquid below a hard boil, so the meat braises slowly and stays tender instead of tightening and drying out. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist.
Flavor stand-ins for the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, truffle, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom):
- Thymebetter flavor fit
- Celerybetter flavor fit
- Parsleybetter flavor fit
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, truffle, ham, carrot, onion, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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