Why it works: Potato and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Veal Stew
Ingredients
Directions
Layer the pot
Layer veal in a pot and season with salt and pepper.
Add a layer of potato slices.
Repeat layering with veal and potatoes until all are used.
Top with a layer of salt pork and then a final layer of potatoes.
Pour in water until it rises 1 inch above the layers.
Cook and finish
Cover the pot tightly and heat for 15 minutes.
Reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.
Ten minutes before serving, add butter and stir in a thin batter made from flour.
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.
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Potato + porktop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Veal + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,930 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour and butter 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 during the long, moist simmer.
- Potatoes
- Absorb the cooking liquid and release starch that gives the stew body.
- Flour
- Forms a thin batter that thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a rounded flavour to the finished stew.
- Salt pork
- Adds savoury fat and salty flavour as it renders into the stew.
The step that matters
Stirring in the flour batter. Flour must be whisked smoothly into a thin batter before it goes in, or it clumps. Stirred into the hot liquid, starch then swells and thickens the broth evenly.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, pork, flour, butter, egg):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Chivefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, pork, flour, butter, egg. 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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