Why it works: Cabbage and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 622 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Tendons of Veal and Stewed Lettuces
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lettuces
Prepare the tendons of veal as in the previous recipe.
Blanch more cabbage lettuces than you have tendons.
Cool the blanched lettuces.
Drain the lettuces on a cloth.
Cut off the green leaves and stalks of the lettuces.
Braise the lettuces
Line a stewpan with layers of fat bacon.
Season the lettuces with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place the lettuces in the stewpan.
Cover the lettuces with slices of fat bacon.
Simmer on low heat for 1.5 hours.
Drain the lettuces again.
Shape the lettuces neatly.
Glaze and serve
In a sauté pan, stew the lettuces with a few spoonfuls of strong consomme and a little brown sauce.
Add a bit of pounded sugar to glaze.
Dish the lettuces and tendons alternately.
Serve with the sauce from the stewed lettuces.
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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Cabbage + lettucetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together622 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,081 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,037 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 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
- Tendons of veal
- Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long slow cooking.
- Cabbage lettuces
- Form the vegetable base, becoming soft and tender after blanching and braising.
- Fat bacon
- Lines and covers the lettuces, adding fat and savoury flavour as they cook.
- Strong consomme
- Adds concentrated meaty flavour to the lettuces during the final stew.
- Pounded sugar
- Helps the lettuces take on a light glaze through caramelisation in the pan.
The step that matters
Simmer on low heat for 1.5 hours. Gentle, low heat lets the connective tissue in the tendons and the cabbage fibres soften slowly without boiling apart. Rapid boiling would toughen the meat and break up the lettuces.
Swap the lettuce
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, cabbage, pepper, sauce, sugar):
- Capsicumfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Horseradishfits better
- Lettucethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, cabbage, pepper, sauce, sugar. 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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