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Veal Pottage

A slow‑cooked veal stew with herbs, mace, and optional vegetables, finished with a cream and flour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Pottage

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Remove all the meat from the knuckle of veal for cutlets.

  2. Set the remainder to stew with onion, herbs, mace, whole pepper, and water for 4–5 hours, covered.

  3. Strain the mixture and let it cool overnight.

  4. Remove the fat and sediment from the jelly.

Finish the soup

  1. Simmer the jelly with diced turnips, celery, sea‑kale, and Jerusalem artichokes until tender, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter.

  2. Mix the flour with the cream and boil for a few minutes.

  3. Let a small roll simmer in the soup 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Knuckle of veal
Gives the stock its body and rich meaty flavour as it stews slowly.
Flour
Thickens the cream and soup, giving a smoother, heavier texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel to the seasoned soup.
Small roll
Soaks up broth as it simmers, becoming soft and absorbing flavour.

The step that matters

Remove the fat and sediment from the jelly. Once the stock has chilled, fat sets on top and sediment settles below. Skimming both leaves a clear, clean-tasting broth before reheating.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, pepper, butter, walnut, flour, cream. 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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