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Boiled Veal

A dish of boiled veal knuckle and calf's head, served with brains and garnished with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boiled Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Boil the knuckle of veal for 2 hours.

  2. Have the calf's head cut in half by the butcher. Remove all inside bones from the calf's head.

  3. Wash the head in several waters with a little salt to draw out the blood.

  4. Boil the head in plenty of water for 2 to 2.25 hours.

Prepare the brains

  1. Clean the brains.

  2. Boil the brains in a cloth for 20-30 minutes with sage leaves or parsley.

  3. Beat the brains with salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice until hot.

Serve

  1. Serve the brains around the skinned tongue.

  2. Garnish the head with sliced lemon.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Slow boiling turns the connective tissue and bone into a tender, rich meat.
Calf's head
Long simmering makes the meat tender and gives the dish its main body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the beaten brains a smooth, silky texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich brains and balances the butter.
Bread crumbs
Absorbs liquid and binds the mixture so it holds together.

The step that matters

Wash the head in several waters with a little salt. Soaking and rinsing draw out residual blood, which otherwise taints the flavour and colour of the meat and broth.

“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.

More boiled veal recipes

Fillet 36Loin 25Knuckle 19Breast 15Leg 6 See all 24 →

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