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Stewed Brisket of Veal, with Turnips

A slow‑cooked stew of veal brisket and turnips flavored with onion, wine, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Stewed Brisket of Veal, with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the veal

  1. Cut the brisket of veal into medium-sized squares.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  3. Add the flour and fry for a few moments while stirring.

  4. Add the pieces of veal.

  5. Fry, stirring continuously, until the meat is well browned.

  6. Remove the stewpan from the heat.

  7. Drain the fat.

Make the stew

  1. Moisten the meat with broth and white wine until just covered.

  2. Season with pepper.

  3. Add the onion studded with cloves.

  4. Stir until it begins to boil.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Cut the turnips into balls or clove shapes.

  7. Blanch them briefly.

  8. Drain them well.

  9. Fry the turnips in butter until they are colored.

  10. Season the turnips.

  11. Add a pinch of sugar.

  12. Drain the fat from the turnips.

  13. Mix the turnips into the stew when it is half done.

  14. Continue to simmer until everything is cooked.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim off the fat from the sauce.

  2. Serve the stew.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + turniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal brisket
Browned meat provides the main body and savoury flavour of the stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it is fried and moistened.
Butter
Carries the frying and adds richness and browning to the meat and turnips.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and tender texture that soften during the long simmer.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the braising liquid, balancing the rich meat.
Broth
Provides the liquid that slowly cooks the veal and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the veal until well browned. Browning the meat through the Maillard reaction builds deep savoury flavour in the sauce. Pale meat tastes flat, and stirring keeps it from scorching while the surfaces brown evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, white wine, pepper, onion, turnip):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, white wine, pepper, onion, turnip. 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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