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Veal Stewed with Oysters

A veal stew cooked with oysters and a white sauce of veal stock and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Stewed with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Stew

  1. Place the veal pieces in a jar with the oysters and their strained liquor.

  2. Add the butter rolled in flour.

  3. Submerge the jar in a kettle of water and stew until the veal is tender.

Finish with sauce

  1. If the veal is already cooked, warm it with the oysters in a white sauce made from veal stock and cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Oyster + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,886 recipes

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

  5. Veal + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together988 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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 body of the dish, becoming tender as slow stewing breaks down its connective tissue.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor, and their liquor adds moisture and seasoning to the stew.
Butter rolled in flour
The flour thickens the liquid while the butter adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Veal stock
Provides the liquid base and deep savory flavor for the stew and the white sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the white sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the stew at a gentle heat. A water bath held below a hard boil lets the veal's connective tissue soften slowly. Vigorous boiling tightens muscle proteins and toughens the meat, and it can also make the delicate oysters rubbery.

“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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