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Ratatouille a LA Creole

A Creole stew of veal, ham, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, okra, and herbs simmered in a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Ratatouille a LA Creole

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Brown veal bones and trimmings in butter or roast them until brown.

  2. Place browned bones in a saucepan with garlic, thyme, tomatoes, and a dash of boiling water.

  3. Simmer gently for 2 hours until the gravy is flavorful.

  4. Strain and return to the saucepan.

Braise the meat

  1. Fry onions in butter until brown, then add to the gravy.

  2. Brown veal pieces in butter, turning often to avoid toughening, then add to the gravy.

  3. Add diced ham, sweet potatoes, salt, and pepper to the saucepan.

  4. Stew gently until veal is tender and sweet potatoes are almost melting, about 1.5 to 2 hours.

  5. Add the can of okra or fresh okra, trimmed, 30 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat in the center of a platter with sweet potatoes around it.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Okra + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together212 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Tomato + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together327 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Veal bones
Release gelatin and flavor into the gravy as they simmer.
Ham
Adds salty, smoky depth to the gravy and stew.
Sweet potatoes
Break down during stewing, thickening the sauce and adding sweetness.
Okra
Adds body and a natural thickening to the stew.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the veal is tender. Veal is lean, so high heat or a hard boil toughens its proteins. Slow, gentle simmering lets connective tissue break down and the meat turn tender.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, thyme, tomato, okra, garlic, onion):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, thyme, tomato, okra, garlic, onion. 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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