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Veal Stew with Rice

A hearty stew of veal and rice simmered with optional vegetables and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cucumber and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Stew with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Add veal and water to a large pot, bring to a simmer, then add salt.

  2. After 30 minutes, add washed rice and continue to simmer for 1.5 hours until both veal and rice are tender.

  3. Season with cayenne and mace 20–30 minutes before serving, adjusting salt as needed.

Optional additions

  1. For a richer flavor, substitute veal broth for water.

  2. Optionally, add green peas after skimming off the scum.

  3. You can also add sliced cucumbers or shredded lettuces when it boils, or use green onions for extra flavor.

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. Cucumber + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Rice + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together734 recipes

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

  3. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Peas + cucumbertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

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

  5. Rice + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat and rich flavor that the stew is built around, becoming tender during long simmering.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the broth as it cooks, adding body to the stew.

The step that matters

Simmering until the veal and rice are tender. Veal needs a long, gentle simmer to become tender and rice needs enough time in the liquid to soften fully. Adding rice too early or boiling too hard can make the rice mushy and toughen the meat.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, rice, pepper, mace, white pepper, cucumber, lettuce):

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, rice, pepper, mace, white pepper, cucumber, lettuce. 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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