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Kalbjleisch Pilau

A veal and rice pilaf simmered with spices and butter, garnished with lemon slices and hard-boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 872 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Kalbjleisch Pilau

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Place the veal in a stew pan with cold water, onion, and celery.

  2. Cover and simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Add mace, coriander, cardamom, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  4. Continue simmering.

Cook the rice

  1. In another pan, melt butter and stir in the rice. Cook until the rice is a nice yellow color.

  2. Remove the meat, keep it warm, and strain the sauce, discarding the fat.

  3. Add the sauce to the rice, cover, and steam, shaking often until the rice is plumped, soft, and dry.

Serve

  1. Cut the meat into portions and arrange on a dish.

  2. Cover with rice in a neat mound.

  3. Garnish with lemon slices and hard-boiled eggs.

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. Coriander + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together872 recipes

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

  2. Cardamom + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Coriander + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal breast
Provides the meat and, as it simmers, the flavorful broth that cooks the rice.
Dry large-grained rice
Absorbs the spiced broth and steams until plump, soft, and dry, forming the pilaf.
Butter
Fat that coats the rice grains and toasts them to a yellow color before the broth is added.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the broth as it simmers with the veal.
Celery root
Adds subtle vegetal aroma and depth to the simmering broth.

The step that matters

Steam the rice until dry. Adding the broth and covering lets the grains absorb liquid and soften gently; shaking keeps them from clumping or scorching. Stopping at the right point leaves separate, fluffy grains rather than a wet, sticky mass.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, celery, coriander, cardamom, clove, pepper):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, celery, coriander, cardamom, clove, pepper. 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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