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A Stew From Cold Meats

A stew made from veal, ham, and roast meat bones with celery, onion, pepper, salt, flour, butter, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Stew From Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. In a pot, combine the knuckle of veal, ham bone, and any roast meat bones.

  2. Stew slowly until the bones can be easily removed.

  3. Add celery tops or seeds, onion, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Thicken the stew with flour rolled in butter.

  5. Add the peeled and quartered potatoes.

  6. Let it all stew slowly until the potatoes are cooked through.

Serve

  1. 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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle and bones
Release gelatin and savory flavor into the stock as they stew slowly.
Flour
Thickens the stew liquid into a smooth, body-rich gravy when cooked.
Butter
Coats the flour so it blends smoothly into the stew without lumps.
Potatoes
Absorb the broth and soften into a starchy, hearty texture.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew with flour rolled in butter. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps. Coating it in butter first lets the starch disperse evenly, so the stew thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, meat, celery, pepper, flour, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, meat, celery, pepper, flour, butter. 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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