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Veal, Breast Of, Stewed in White Sauce

Veal breast pieces simmered with herbs, lemon rind, and stock, finished with a white sauce of egg yolks and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal, Breast Of, Stewed in White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the veal

  1. In a stewpan, combine veal, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, shallots or onions, lemon rind, mace, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour stock or water over the meat, bring to a boil, skim, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 1.5 to 2 hours until tender.

  3. Remove the meat and keep warm in the oven.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the gravy back into the saucepan.

  2. Beat egg yolks with milk or cream, then stir into the gravy over low heat until it thickens, without boiling.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the veal and serve hot.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the sauce and balancing the egg yolks.
Shallots or onions
Add mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the stock that flavours the gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce without boiling. Egg yolks begin to scramble above roughly 80°C, so the gravy must stay over low heat and never boil. Stirring constantly and removing it from direct heat if it climbs too fast keeps the sauce smooth rather than grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, thyme, shallot, lemon, white pepper, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, thyme, shallot, lemon, white pepper, egg. 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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