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A LA Podlette

A stew of beef tails simmered with carrot, onion, parsley, cloves, mace, peppercorns, broth, and finished with mushrooms and black truffle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 8,053 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: scallop

Directions

Prepare the tails

  1. Scald the calves' tails with the skin on.

  2. Cut the scalded tails into joints.

  3. Parboil the joints in water for 5 minutes.

  4. Immerse the parboiled joints in cold water.

  5. Drain the joints on a napkin.

  6. Trim the drained joints.

Stew

  1. Place the trimmed joints in a stewpan with carrot, onion, parsley, cloves, mace, and peppercorns.

  2. Moisten the stewpan with broth or water.

  3. Add salt if using water.

  4. Boil gently for about 1 hour.

  5. Drain the cooked tails.

  6. Trim the drained tails neatly.

Arrange and serve

  1. Arrange the trimmed tails in a pyramidal form in a croustade.

  2. Pour a rich sauce à la poulette with the mushrooms over the arranged tails.

  3. Garnish with fluted scallops of red tongue.

  4. Top with a glazed black truffle before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Mushroom + truffletop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Clove + macetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,916 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Calves' tails
Provide the main meat and gelatinous body of the stew, becoming tender during gentle simmering.
Broth or water
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the joints and forms the base for the stew.
Button mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavour and texture to the rich sauce served over the tails.
Black truffle
Adds a concentrated, aromatic earthy flavour as the finishing garnish.

The step that matters

Boil gently for about 1 hour. Boiling vigorously toughens meat proteins and breaks up the joints, while a gentle simmer slowly converts collagen into gelatin, making the tails tender and silky.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, parsley, clove, mace, mushroom, truffle):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, parsley, clove, mace, mushroom, truffle. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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