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Roasted Shoulder of Veal, with Fine Herbs

Roasted veal shoulder marinated in leeks, herbs, and spices, then roasted and served with a herb sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 64 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Roasted Shoulder of Veal, with Fine Herbs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim the breast of veal and rub it with lard.

  2. Marinate the veal for 3 hours in a bowl with leeks, parsley, fennel, mushrooms, bay leaves, thyme, sweet basil, shallots, ground pepper, grated nutmeg, and oil.

  3. Wrap the veal in two sheets of buttered paper to keep the herbs in place.

Roast and make the sauce

  1. Roast the veal until done, then remove the paper and herbs.

  2. While making the sauce, keep the veal on the spit.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the herbs, some drippings, verjuice, butter, flour, salt, and pepper; mix over heat to create a sauce.

Finish and brown

  1. Mix the sauce with melted butter and beaten egg yolks, then sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Broil until golden brown.

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. Leek + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Fennel + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together337 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Forms the main body of the roast, with lean meat that becomes tender when slowly cooked.
Egg yolks (in the method)
Enrich the sauce and help bind it into a smooth, cohesive coating.
Flour
Thickens the drippings and herb mixture into a sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the crumbs brown.
Verjuice
Adds gentle acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich fats.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top when broiled.

The step that matters

Broil until golden brown. The sauce-coated crumbs can scorch quickly under high heat. Watch closely so the crust browns evenly without burning before the sauce is set.

Swap the basil

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, leek, parsley, fennel, mushroom, thyme, shallot):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, leek, parsley, fennel, mushroom, thyme, shallot. 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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