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Shoulder, Roasted

Roasted veal shoulder with herbs, served with onions and carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Shoulder, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Roast

  1. Butter the shoulder of veal and place it on a spit before a good fire.

  2. Roast for about 2 hours, basting occasionally.

Prepare and braise

  1. For a different method, remove the bones from the shoulder.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley, grated nutmeg, salt, and pepper, then tie with twine or secure with skewers.

  3. In a stewpan, heat the butter until hot, then add the meat.

  4. Brown the meat on all sides, then add bay leaf, thyme, parsley, garlic, onions, carrots, and warm water.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Strain the sauce onto a dish, place the meat on it, and serve with onions and carrots around.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of veal
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown during basting and browning.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding flavour to the sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the braising liquid and sauce.

The step that matters

Brown the meat on all sides. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates deep colour and savoury flavour. Pale meat gives a flatter, less rich sauce after simmering.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, egg, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, parsley, nutmeg, pepper, egg, thyme. 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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