Skip to main content
Main

Fricasseed Veal with Cauliflower

A stew of veal, onion, tomatoes, and cauliflower simmered in oil and water, thickened with flour or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 233 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fricasseed Veal with Cauliflower

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into pieces, not too small, and sprinkle with salt and ginger.

  2. Heat the goose oil in a stew pan and add the veal.

Stew

  1. Add the chopped onion and tomatoes, along with a little hot water.

  2. Cover and stew for 2 hours.

  3. Mix the flour with a little water and add to the veal (or use cream instead).

  4. Boil the cauliflower in salted water, covered, at the same time as the veal.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the chopped parsley, bring to a boil, and serve.

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 + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together233 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Ginger + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens into the stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that shape the stew's flavor and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
Goose oil or poultry drippings
Adds fat and rich flavor for browning the veal at the start.

The step that matters

Cover and stew for 2 hours. Long, gentle, covered simmering breaks down the connective tissue in veal so it turns tender. Boiling hard or uncovered can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too quickly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, tomato, cream, flour, parsley, cauliflower):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, tomato, cream, flour, parsley, cauliflower. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipes