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A Bueast of Veal in Hodge-podge

A stew of veal breast pieces with peas or cucumbers, lettuce, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Bueast of Veal in Hodge-podge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Flour the pieces of veal.

  2. Heat the butter in a stew-pan until hot, then add the veal and fry until light brown.

  3. Pour in boiling water to fill the pan and stir well.

Stew

  1. Add the peas, lettuce, mace, pepper, sweet herbs, onion, and salt.

  2. Cover and let it stew for 1 hour or until cooked to your preference.

  3. For a sauce, reduce the liquid to your desired amount and season with salt.

  4. Remove the onion, herbs, and spices, then pour the mixture into a serving dish.

  5. If using cucumbers, add them along with chopped celery instead of peas.

Serve

  1. For a special touch, fill the lettuce with forcemeat, tie it, and stew until just enough sauce remains.

  2. Place the stuffed lettuce in the center and arrange the veal around it, pouring sauce over everything.

  3. Garnish with bread crumbs shaped by hand.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Lettuce + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing in liquid.
Butter
Browns the floured veal, adding color and a rich, nutty flavor.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, tender texture to the stew.
Lettuce
Softens as it stews, adding moisture and a mild, gentle flavor.

The step that matters

Frying the floured veal until light brown. Flour and fat brown together through the Maillard reaction, building color and savory flavor that carries into the sauce. Frying in batches keeps the pan from crowding, so the meat browns rather than steams.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, onion, clove):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, onion, clove. 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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