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Breast of Veal Ragout

A veal breast ragout simmered with herbs, spices, and aromatics, finished with a beurre manié thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and white wine work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 134 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl decanoate, which smells grape, waxy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the underbone from the breast of veal and cut it in half lengthwise.

  2. Divide the veal into pieces about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  3. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a frying pan and fry the veal until light brown.

Stew the meat

  1. Transfer the veal to a stew pan and cover with veal broth or boiling water.

  2. Add the sweet marjoram, thyme, parsley, cloves, mace, onions, lemon peel, bruised allspice, and salt.

  3. Cover and simmer gently for about 1.5 hours, or 2 hours if thick.

  4. Strain off about 1 quart of gravy into a basin and keep the meat warm.

Make the sauce

  1. In a clean stew pan, melt 1.5 ounces of butter and stir in enough flour to make a paste.

  2. Gradually add the reserved gravy, season with salt, and boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Skim the gravy and season with white wine, mushroom ketchup, and lemon juice.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Marjoram + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together957 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 long, gentle simmering.
Butter
Browns the veal for flavour and, with flour, thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Combined with butter to form a roux that thickens the reserved gravy.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the finished gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Making the roux before adding the gravy. Flour must be cooked into the melted butter until it forms a smooth paste before liquid is added, otherwise it clumps and the sauce stays floury. Boiling the gravy afterwards cooks out the raw flour taste and sets the thickness.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

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

  1. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, marjoram, lemon, parsley, clove, mace. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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