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Veal Fillet, Stewed

Veal fillet rolled with forcemeat, stewed with mushrooms and stock, finished with a brown butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Fillet, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Flatten the veal with a rolling pin, spread on the forcemeat, roll it up, and tie securely with kitchen twine.

  2. Melt the dripping in a stewpan.

  3. Fry the meat until browned on all sides.

  4. Drain off the fat.

Stew the veal

  1. Add the mushrooms.

  2. Add the stock or water.

  3. If using water, add sliced onion, carrot, and turnip.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Cover and simmer gently for 2 hours, ensuring the liquid stays at a simmer.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In another stewpan, melt the butter.

  2. Add the flour, and cook gently until browned.

  3. Add the strained cooking liquid from the veal to the flour mixture, stir until boiling.

  4. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Add the lemon juice and adjust seasoning to taste.

  6. Serve the meat on a hot dish with some sauce poured over it, and the rest in a tureen.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal fillet
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long gentle simmering.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Browned in butter and mixed with the cooking liquid, it thickens the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stewing liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2 hours. A rolling boil toughens meat proteins and can break the stew apart, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly into tender meat.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, mushroom, lemon, pepper, onion. 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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