Skip to main content
Main

Minded Veal

A veal stew simmered with water, onion, lemon peel, mace, carrots, herbs, finished with butter, flour, lemon juice, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minded Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. If there are any bones, dredge them with flour and place them in a stewpan with the brown outside and some meat trimmings.

  2. Add the water, onion, lemon peel, seasoning, mace, carrots, and herbs; simmer for about 1 hour and then strain the liquid.

Finish the stew

  1. Rub a little flour into the butter, add it to the gravy, and bring to a boil, skimming well.

  2. Finely mince the veal by cutting, not chopping, and add it to the gravy; warm it through gradually.

  3. Stir in the lemon juice and cream, then serve garnished with toasted bread slices and rolled, toasted bacon slices.

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

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

  2. Lemon + carrottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,351 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Veal
Provides the meat that becomes the stew's main body and flavour once minced and warmed through.
Butter
Combined with flour to form a roux that thickens the gravy and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when cooked with butter, giving it body and a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, mellower texture to the finished gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and balances its richness.

The step that matters

Warm the minced veal gradually. Meat that is heated too fast or kept at a hard boil becomes tough and dry. Warming it slowly in the gravy keeps the minced veal tender and moist.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, lemon, mace, carrot, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, lemon, mace, carrot, butter, flour. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes