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A Breast of Veal in Hodge-podge

A stew of veal pieces with peas, lettuce, spices, and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

A Breast of Veal in Hodge-podge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Flour the pieces of veal.

  2. Heat the butter in a stew-pan until hot.

  3. Add the veal and fry until light brown.

  4. Pour in boiling water to fill the pan and stir.

Stew

  1. Add the peas, lettuce, mace, pepper, sweet herbs, onion, and salt.

  2. Cover and stew for 1 hour or until cooked to your preference.

  3. Reduce the liquid to your desired amount for sauce.

  4. Season the sauce with salt.

  5. Remove the onion, sweet herbs, and spices before serving.

  6. If no peas are available, substitute with cucumbers and celery.

  7. Fill the lettuce with forcemeat.

  8. Tie the lettuce.

  9. Stew until just enough sauce remains.

Serve

  1. Serve the veal around the lettuce and pour sauce over it.

  2. Garnish with bread crumbs shaped by hand.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 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

Veal
Provides the main meat, which browns on frying and becomes tender during stewing.
Flour
Coats the veal so it browns and helps thicken the sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying the veal, adding browning and rich flavour.
Green peas
Add sweetness and soft texture to the stew.
Lettuce
Becomes tender through stewing and adds a mild, savoury vegetable flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the floured veal until light brown. Browning builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, but floured meat can scorch if the butter is too hot, so keep heat moderate and watch closely.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, onion):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, onion. 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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