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A Ragout of Cold Veal

A ragout of veal and ham cooked in butter with tomato ketchup and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Ragout of Cold Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Heat a large piece of butter in a frying pan.

  2. Dredge the veal slices with flour and fry until nicely browned.

  3. Remove the veal from the pan.

Make the ragout

  1. Add cold gravy to the pan, season with pepper and salt, and stir in the tomato ketchup.

  2. Layer slices of cold ham in the gravy and add the veal slices.

  3. 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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main meat, which browns on the outside while staying tender inside.
Flour
Coats the veal so it browns well in the hot butter and thickens the pan juices.
Butter
Conducts heat for browning the veal and adds richness to the pan.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, giving it a tangy flavour.
Cold ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the gravy and layers through the dish.

The step that matters

Fry the floured veal until nicely browned. Flour and hot butter need enough heat to brown the surface through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavour. Pale or crowded veal will taste flat and may release juices that thin the gravy.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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