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Veal, Breast of

A veal breast dish simmered with ham, onion, mushrooms, and brown thickening, served over toasted sippets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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, Breast of

Ingredients

Directions

Make the veal

  1. Fry the pieces of veal in butter or fat until lightly browned.

  2. Add grated ham, sliced onion, pepper, and salt to the pan.

  3. Pour in enough stock or water to barely cover the veal.

  4. Simmer gently for about two hours until the veal is cooked through.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the stewed mushrooms and thicken the sauce with brown thickening.

  2. Garnish with finely chopped parsley and serve over toasted sippets.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

Breast of veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering in liquid.
Grated ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the braising liquid and sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth as it softens in the pan.
Stewed mushrooms
Add earthy, savoury flavour to the finished sauce.
Brown thickening
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, coating sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for about two hours. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue in the veal break down slowly, giving tender meat. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and can make the sauce cloudy or reduce it unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, ham, pepper, mushroom, parsley. 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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