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Boiled Veal

A boiled veal dish including knuckle, neck or breast, calf's head, brains, and garnish with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal for 2 hours.

  2. Boil the scrag of neck or breast for 1¾ to 2 hours.

  3. Cut the calf's head in half and remove all inside bones.

  4. Wash the calf's head in several waters with a little salt to draw out the blood.

  5. Boil the calf's head in plenty of water for 2 to 2¼ hours.

Make the brains

  1. Clean the brains.

  2. Boil the brains in a cloth with sage leaves for 20-30 minutes.

  3. Beat the brains in a small saucepan with salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice.

  4. Serve the brains hot around the skinned tongue.

  5. Garnish the calf's head with sliced lemon.

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

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

  2. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Long boiling breaks down connective tissue, giving the meat tenderness and a rich, gelatinous body in the broth.
Calf's head
Its bones, skin and connective tissue turn tender and gelatinous during long boiling, giving body to the dish.
Brains (in the method)
Boiling sets their soft texture, and beating them with butter and lemon makes them smooth and rich.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the beaten brains a smooth, creamy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich brains and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Washing the calf's head in several waters. Soaking and rinsing in fresh water with a little salt draws out blood, which otherwise makes the cooking liquid dark and the meat taste harsh.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, butter, pepper, lemon. 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.

More boiled veal recipes

Fillet 36Loin 25Knuckle 19Breast 15Leg 6 See all 24 →

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