Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Veal Ragout
Ingredients
Directions
Brown the veal
Cut the meat into serving pieces.
Heat the dripping in a stewpan.
Fry the meat until lightly browned, then drain off the fat.
Cover the meat with hot water and add the vegetable trimmings, keeping the carrot, turnip, and onion in water until needed.
Season with salt and pepper.
Cover with a lid.
Cook slowly for 2 hours, keeping the water at a simmer.
Make the roux
Heat the butter in another stewpan.
Add the flour.
Stir until it turns pale brown.
Finish the ragout
When the meat is done, strain the liquid.
Add stock or water to make 1½ pints.
Mix the liquid with the butter and flour.
Stir until boiling.
Season to taste.
Add the meat.
Simmer gently for 1 hour.
Serve garnished with the separately boiled vegetable dice.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,874 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 during slow simmering, giving the ragout its body.
- Dripping
- Fat used for frying the meat, adding browning and savoury flavour.
- Butter
- Enriches the sauce and adds rich flavour when cooked with the flour.
- Flour
- Thickens the liquid into a sauce when cooked with butter and stirred into the stock.
- Onion
- Adds aromatic sweetness to the cooking liquid as it simmers with the meat.
The step that matters
Stir the flour until pale brown. Cooking the butter and flour together as a roux removes raw starch taste and lets the mixture thicken smoothly when liquid is added. Stirring keeps it from scorching.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper. 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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