Skip to main content
Main

Stewed Veal with Forcemeat Balls

A stew of veal simmered with onion, spices, and forcemeat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Veal with Forcemeat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Place the veal in a stewpan with the onion, pepper, salt, and ginger.

  2. Bring to a boil, remove any scum, and simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours.

Make the meatballs

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, parsley, seasoning, and lemon rind.

  2. Beat the egg slightly and add it to the bowl with enough bread crumbs to bind the mixture.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls using a spoon dipped in crumbs.

Finish and serve

  1. Drop the balls into the stew 20 minutes before serving.

  2. Add the remaining parsley and a few crumbs 5 minutes before serving to thicken the gravy.

  3. When serving, remove the balls first to prevent them from breaking.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Onion + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,595 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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
Slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and the stew rich.
Egg
Binds the meatball mixture together so the balls hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the meatballs; a few more thicken the gravy.
Chopped meat
Forms the body of the meatballs, giving them savory flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Drop the meatballs in late and remove them first. Meatballs are fragile and can break apart if simmered too long or stirred vigorously, so they are added shortly before serving and lifted out first.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, pepper, parsley, bread, meat, egg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, parsley, bread, meat, egg. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes