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A Neck of Veal, Larded, and Oyster Sauce

A stew of veal neck, onions, herbs, and oysters, finished with a thickened oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

A Neck of Veal, Larded, and Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim the neck of veal.

  2. Blanch it in cold water until boiling, then remove from heat and place in cold water.

  3. In a stewpan, combine veal trimmings, onions, thyme, parsley, bay leaves, mace, and second stock.

  4. Add the neck of veal and lemon slices.

  5. Cover with parchment and a lid, then simmer for 2 hours.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. For the sauce, shuck 1 quart of large oysters, remove the gills, and strain the liquor.

  2. In a separate stewpan, melt butter over heat, then add enough flour to absorb it.

  3. Cook for a few minutes while stirring, then add oyster liquor, a little stock, and cream.

  4. Bring to a boil while stirring, and thicken more than béchamel.

  5. Add the oysters and keep on low heat without boiling.

  6. Squeeze in lemon juice and season with pepper and salt.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal neck
Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering.
Butter
Melted with flour to form the roux that gives the sauce its base and fat.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with butter and liquid into a smooth body.
Oysters
Give the sauce its distinctive briny flavour and texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, rounder texture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters. Oysters toughen and shrink when boiled, so they should be added at the end and kept on low heat without boiling to stay tender and plump.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, thyme, parsley, lemon, butter, flour. 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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