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To Stew Veal That Has Been Dressed

A veal stew flavored with pepper, salt, nutmeg, mace, marjoram, shallot, lemon, finished with gravy, mushroom liquor, lemon juice, garnished with oysters, bacon, lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 957 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Stew Veal That Has Been Dressed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Cut the veal into thick slices and place in a stew pan.

  2. Cover the veal with water or broth and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, mace, sweet marjoram, shallot, and lemon‑thyme or grated lemon peel.

  3. Stew the mixture until the veal is almost done.

  4. Add good gravy, mushroom liquor, and lemon juice, then stew for a little longer.

Thicken and serve

  1. Strain the liquid and thicken it with butter and flour.

  2. Place the meat in a dish and pour the sauce over it.

  3. Garnish with sippets and fried oysters or bits of broiled bacon and 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. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Marjoram + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together287 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Is the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens the strained sauce.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid with butter, giving the sauce body.
Good gravy
Gives the sauce concentrated savoury body and depth of flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.
Mushroom liquor
Adds earthy, savoury flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the strained sauce with butter and flour. Flour needs to be cooked with the butter before or while the liquid is added, otherwise it stays starchy and lumpy. Properly cooked starch swells in hot liquid, giving a smooth, glossy sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, shallot, lemon, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, shallot, lemon, mushroom. 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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