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Breast of Veal Ragout

A savory ragout made with veal breast, lard, veal broth, morels, truffles, sweetbread, egg balls, artichoke bottoms, ketchup, cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Artichoke and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 636 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Breast of Veal Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the under bone from the breast of veal and cut it in half lengthwise, then cut the veal into medium-sized pieces.

  2. In a pan, heat the lard and fry the veal pieces until light brown.

  3. Wipe the veal dry and place it in a stewpan with the veal broth.

Stew

  1. Simmer until nearly done and the liquid is almost reduced.

  2. Add the blanched morels, truffles, sweetbread slices, egg balls, artichoke bottoms, ketchup, cayenne pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  3. Let everything stew together until fully cooked.

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. Artichoke + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together636 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Artichoke + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Truffle + artichoketop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together240 recipes

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

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 simmering in broth.
Lard
Fat for frying the veal, encouraging light browning that adds savory flavor.
Veal broth
Liquid that cooks the veal and reduces to a concentrated sauce.
Morels
Add earthy, aromatic flavor and a meaty texture to the ragout.
Sweetbread
Contributes a delicate, creamy texture to the stew.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savory sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the veal until light brown. Browning the meat creates savory flavors through the Maillard reaction. Pat the veal dry first, since surface moisture steams the meat instead of browning it.

“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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