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Boiled Knuckle of Veal with Parsley Sauce

A boiled knuckle of veal served with parsley sauce and curled bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,766 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Knuckle of Veal with Parsley Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Chop the bone of the knuckle of veal twice across.

  2. Place the veal in a pan with 2 quarts of water and add a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, and then allow to simmer gently for 2½ hours.

Serve

  1. Remove from heat and serve on a hot dish, pouring a little of the cooking liquid around it.

  2. Serve with curled bacon and parsley sauce.

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. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Veal + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,072 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides the main meat, and the bone and connective tissue enrich the cooking liquid during long simmering.
Water
Forms the cooking liquid that gently breaks down the meat and collagen over the simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering gently after skimming. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. Skimming off foam removes impurities that would otherwise cloud the liquid and mar its flavour.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce. 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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