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Breast of Veal, Stewed

A slow‑cooked veal breast with onions, carrot, turnip, peppercorns, and salt, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Breast of Veal, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the veal in a saucepan and cover with cold water, then bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

Stew

  1. Add the diced vegetables, peppercorns, and salt.

  2. Cover and simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with hot sauce poured over the veal and extra sauce on the side.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Breast of veal
Slow, gentle cooking breaks down its connective tissue, making the meat tender and moist.
Onion
Releases savory sweetness and aroma into the cooking liquid as it softens.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and body to the stewing liquid.
Turnip
Contributes a mild, slightly peppery flavor and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently, not at a rolling boil. Vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and makes the broth cloudy. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue melt slowly, keeping the veal tender and the stock clear.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, turnip, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, turnip, parsley. 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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