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Loin of Veal Stewed

A stew of veal loin with carrots, onion, parsley, sweet herbs, and veal broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Loin of Veal Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Dust the veal with flour.

  2. In a stewpan, melt the butter and brown it over medium heat. Add the veal and brown it well.

  3. Pour in enough veal broth to half cover the meat.

Stew

  1. Add the carrots, onion, parsley, and sweet herbs.

  2. Stew for 2.5 hours, turning the meat halfway through.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the meat and thicken the broth.

  2. Season the broth and pour it over the veal.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing in liquid.
Butter
Fat for browning the veal, adding flavour and colour to the meat and the broth.
Flour
Coats the veal so it browns well and helps thicken the broth at the end.
Veal broth
Liquid that gently cooks the meat and forms the base of the sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften during stewing.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Browning the veal. Searing the flour-dusted meat in butter over medium heat builds browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat gives a flatter, less savoury stew, so the veal should be browned well on all sides before adding liquid.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, carrot, parsley, pepper. 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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