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Breast or Scrag of Veal Stewed

A veal stew simmered with sweet herbs, onions, lemon peel, mace, cloves, allspice, and black pepper, thickened with butter and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Breast or Scrag of Veal Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into pieces or leave it whole.

  2. Cover the veal with water in a pot, then add pepper and coarse sea salt and cover the pot.

  3. Simmer until the meat is tender.

  4. Remove the meat and keep it warm.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  3. Add the sweet herbs and onions to the pot.

  4. Simmer gently for two hours.

Serve

  1. Pour the thickened gravy over the meat.

  2. Garnish with lemon slices.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Marjoram + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together455 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 through slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy and helps give it a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so it thickens smoothly; if added raw or in lumps, it stays grainy and pasty.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, thyme, marjoram, parsley, winter savory, lemon):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, thyme, marjoram, parsley, winter savory, 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.

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