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Veal, Breast Of, Stewed with Oysters

A veal stew flavored with oysters, mace, cinnamon, and sweet herbs, finished with a milk or cream and egg yolk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Veal, Breast Of, Stewed with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the veal, onion, mace, sweet herbs, cinnamon, pepper, and salt.

  2. Pour the oyster liquor over the veal and add lemon juice and stock if needed.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours, skimming occasionally.

Make the sauce

  1. Strain the cooking liquid and mix it with milk or cream and egg yolks, stirring until thickened.

Serve

  1. Heat the oysters in the oven in the serving dish without cooking them.

  2. Pour the sauce over the oysters, place the veal in the center, 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of veal
Long, gentle simmering turns the tough connective tissue tender and gives the stew its body.
Egg yolks
They thicken the strained liquid into a smooth sauce as they gently set with heat.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and softens the sauce, giving it a mellow, velvety texture.
Oysters
Provide a briny, savory flavor that the sauce and veal are built around.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the oysters.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with egg yolks. Egg yolks set when heated, but if the liquid gets too hot or is stirred poorly it can curdle or scramble. Keep heat low and stir constantly while the sauce thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, clove, mace, cinnamon, pepper, oyster, lemon):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, clove, mace, cinnamon, pepper, oyster, lemon. 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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