Skip to main content
Main

Knuckle of Veal, Stewed with Rice

A slow‑cooked stew of veal knuckle and rice, flavored with onions, salt, pepper, sugar, and water, garnished with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Knuckle of Veal, Stewed with Rice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Place the veal in a stewpan with the chopped onions, salt, pepper, sugar, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim off any foam, then reduce heat and simmer gently for 1.5 hours, skimming frequently.

  3. Wash the rice and add it to the stewpan with the veal.

  4. Continue to simmer for another hour.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, garnished with sliced lemon.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides the main meat and, as it simmers, rich flavour and body to the broth.
Rice
Absorbs liquid as it cooks, thickening the stew and giving it a starchy body.
Onions
Soften during simmering and add sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam after boiling. Foam that rises at the start of simmering contains impurities that can make the broth cloudy and taste bitter. Removing it early, and skimming again as needed, keeps the stew clear and clean-flavoured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, sugar, rice, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, sugar, rice, lemon. 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 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipes