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Veal, Stewed Breast Of, and Peas

A stew of veal breast pieces simmered with herbs, spices, and green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Veal, Stewed Breast Of, and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the breast of veal in half and remove the bone.

  2. Divide the meat into convenient-sized pieces.

  3. Melt the butter in a frying pan and brown the pieces of veal.

Stew the veal

  1. Transfer the browned veal to a stewpan with the herbs, mace, cloves, onions, lemon peel, allspice, and seasoning.

  2. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the meat, close the lid, and simmer gently for about 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain off the required gravy, thicken it with butter and flour, and add the remaining ingredients.

  2. Skim the gravy well and let it simmer for about 10 minutes before pouring it over the meat.

  3. Boil the green peas separately and sprinkle them over the veal before serving.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsley + allspicetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lemon + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and browns the veal before stewing, building flavour on the surface of the meat.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the meat and peas.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a mellow, aromatic depth to the gravy.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity, savoury depth and colour to the gravy.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the veal in butter. Searing the pieces until golden creates browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stopping early leaves the meat pale and the gravy flat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, parsley, mace, clove, lemon, allspice):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, parsley, mace, clove, lemon, allspice. 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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