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Veal Stew

A hearty stew of veal, onions, potatoes, butter, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal and potatoes

  1. Cover the veal with boiling water and add salt and browned onion.

  2. Simmer until the veal is tender.

  3. Add the potatoes and cook until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a separate pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour.

  2. Add the cold milk and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the veal broth to the mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Remove any bones from the veal and combine everything in the pot.

  2. Simmer for an additional 5 minutes, then serve.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in water.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the stew as they cook and soften.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form a roux, a base for the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in butter and combined with liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the thickened sauce.

The step that matters

Stir the milk into the roux until smooth. Adding cold milk to a hot roux can cause lumps if not whisked constantly. Stirring keeps the flour evenly dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly as it heats.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, potato, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, potato, butter, flour, milk. 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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