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Breast of Veal in Hodge-Podge

A veal stew with peas, lettuce, mace, pepper, herbs, and onion, simmered in butter and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Breast of Veal in Hodge-Podge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the breast of veal into small pieces and remove the bones.

  2. Flour the veal pieces.

Brown the veal

  1. Heat the butter in a stewpan until hot.

  2. Add the veal and fry until light brown.

  3. Pour in boiling water to fill the stewpan and stir.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the peas, lettuce, mace, pepper, sweet herbs, onion, and salt.

  2. Cover and simmer for 1 hour or until cooked to your liking.

  3. For sauce, remove the onion, herbs, and spices 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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

  4. Flour + lettucetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Veal breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Flour
Coats the veal, helping it brown and thickening the cooking liquid into a sauce.
Butter
Fat for frying the veal, adding browning and rich flavor.
Green peas
Add sweetness and color, cooking gently in the stew.
Lettuce
Softens as it simmers, adding moisture and a mild vegetable flavor to the stew.

The step that matters

Fry the floured veal until light brown. Browning the flour-coated meat in hot butter builds savory flavor through the Maillard reaction and helps the flour begin thickening the sauce. Pale meat makes a blander, thinner stew.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, peas, lettuce, pepper, 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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