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Potato De Veau. — Veal Pottage

A veal stew with carrots, onion, mace, chervil, and buttered rice, optionally finished with sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 355 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Potato De Veau. — Veal Pottage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stew the knuckle of veal in water with carrots, onion, and mace until the meat is tender.

  2. Keep the meat hot while boiling the soup with chervil, flour mixed with butter, sliced carrot, pepper, and salt.

  3. Serve the meat on a dish of buttered rice.

  4. For added flavor, mix sour cream into the soup 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + cherviltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together355 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Chervil + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chervil + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together867 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides the meat served on the rice and gives body and flavor to the broth as it stews.
Butter
Mixed with flour to form a roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Flour
Combined with butter to thicken the soup slightly as it boils.
Sour cream
Adds richness and a tangy note to the soup when stirred in before serving.

The step that matters

Boiling the soup with the flour and butter mixture. Flour mixed with butter must be stirred in well and kept at a gentle boil so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw floury taste.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, onion, chervil, flour, butter, 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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