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Breast of Veal Ragout

A veal ragout simmered with herbs, spices, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Breast of Veal Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Remove the underbone from the breast of veal and cut it in half lengthwise.

  2. Divide the veal into pieces about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide.

  3. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a frying pan and fry the veal until light brown.

  4. Transfer the veal to a stew pan and cover with veal broth or boiling water.

Simmer

  1. Add the marjoram, thyme, parsley, cloves, mace, onions, lemon peel, allspice, and salt.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for about 1.5 hours, or 2 hours if the meat is thick, until tender.

  3. Strain off about 1 quart of the gravy into a basin and keep the meat warm.

Thicken and finish the gravy

  1. In a clean stew pan, melt 1.5 ounces of butter and stir in enough flour to make a roux.

  2. Gradually add the reserved gravy, season with salt, and let it boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Skim the gravy and season with white wine, mushroom ketchup, and lemon juice.

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. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  4. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering in liquid.
Butter
Browns the veal first and enriches the gravy, with a second portion forming the roux.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the strained gravy into a coating sauce.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the broth as it simmers.
White wine
Adds acidity and brightness to the finished gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the veal until light brown. Browning creates deeper savory flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale veal gives a flatter, less rich gravy, so the pieces need colour before liquid is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, marjoram, lemon, parsley, clove, onion. 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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