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A boiled leg of veal cooked slowly in water with flour dusting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,870 recipes mention both. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dust the veal well with fine flour.

  2. Fill a pot with enough soft water and place the veal in it.

  3. Set the pot over a large fire.

Boil

  1. Remove any scum that rises as soon as it begins to form.

  2. Cover the pot closely and let the meat boil slowly for 3.5 hours.

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. Veal + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together5,870 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of veal
Is the main cut of meat that becomes tender through long, slow boiling.
Fine flour
Coats the surface of the veal, helping to form a light crust and protect the meat.
Soft water
Serves as the cooking liquid that gently transfers heat to the meat.

The step that matters

Removing the scum as it forms. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface. Skimming it as soon as it forms keeps the broth clear and prevents it from being absorbed back into the meat, which would give a cloudy, off-flavoured result.

“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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