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Braised Neck of Veal, and Oyster Sauce

Braised veal neck simmered with herbs and stock, served with a thickened oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14,037 recipes mention both. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Braised Neck of Veal, and Oyster Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Blanch the neck of veal in cold water, boil briefly, then plunge into fresh cold water.

  2. Combine veal stock, veal trimmings, onions, bay leaves, parsley, sweet herbs, and mace in a stewpan.

  3. Add the neck of veal.

  4. Cover with lemon slices and bacon.

  5. Simmer for about 2 hours.

Make the oyster sauce

  1. Blanch the oysters and remove the gills.

  2. Strain the liquor.

  3. Melt butter in a separate stewpan.

  4. Dredge with flour and stir until dry.

  5. Add the oyster liquor, a little stock, and cream.

  6. Stir until thickened.

  7. Add the oysters and heat gently without boiling.

  8. Season with lemon juice, sugar, salt, and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve the veal on a dish.

  2. Pour the oyster sauce over it.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of veal
Long simmering in stock turns the tough connective tissue tender and gives a rich body.
Veal stock or broth
Provides the liquid for braising and a savory, gelatin-rich base for the sauce.
Oysters
Give the sauce its distinctive briny, savory flavor and soft texture.
Butter
Fat that combines with flour to form a roux, enriching the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter as a roux.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the oysters gently without boiling. Boiling toughens the oysters and can cause the cream-thickened sauce to curdle or separate, so the sauce should only be warmed once the oysters are added.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

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

  1. Capersbetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

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