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Veal Cutlets Braised

Veal cutlets braised with carrots, turnip, onion, celery, sherry, and a roux‑thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into 3‑inch square pieces.

  2. Pound the pieces with a rolling pin until almost a pulp.

  3. Press the pieces back into shape.

  4. If desired, lard the cutlets with pork.

Braise

  1. Fry the chopped vegetables in butter until slightly brown.

  2. Place the fried vegetables in a saucepan.

  3. Lay the cutlets on top of the vegetables.

  4. Cover the saucepan with strong stock, add salt and pepper, and cover tightly.

  5. Stew gently for about 1.5 hours.

  6. Remove the meat when cooked.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with a roux made of flour and butter, blending it into the boiling sauce until smooth.

  2. Boil the gravy for 5 minutes.

  3. Add sherry to taste.

  4. Strain the gravy.

  5. Serve the cutlets in a circle with mixed vegetables or a purée in the center.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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

Veal cutlet
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as a roux when blended into the boiling sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.
Onion, carrot, turnip and celery
Flavour base that sweetens and aromatises the stock and gravy as they stew.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with the pan tightly covered. Low, slow heat with a tight lid lets the connective tissue in the veal break down gradually, giving tender meat. Boiling hard would toughen the protein and dry the cutlets, while a loose lid lets the stock reduce too much.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, carrot, turnip, butter, celery, sherry):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, carrot, turnip, butter, celery, 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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