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Knuckle of Veal Ragout

A slow‑cooked ragout made from a veal knuckle, onions, celery or carrot, sweet herbs, and a sauce of ketchup, wine, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Knuckle of Veal Ragout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into slices about ½ inch thick.

  2. Boil the bones until the gristle is tender, adding a bit of paste at each end to secure the marrow.

  3. Return the bones to the broth and boil until reduced to 1 quart, adding onions, celery or carrot, and sweet herbs.

Make the sauce

  1. Season the meat with salt, pepper, and flour, then fry until golden brown.

  2. Strain the gravy, remove fat, and thicken with butter and flour.

  3. Add ketchup, white wine, and lemon juice, ensuring the mixture is smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Bring the sauce to a boil, add the meat, and heat through.

  2. Serve garnished with ham, bacon, or sausages.

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

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

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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 knuckle
Provides the meat and, through the bones, the gelatinous broth that gives the sauce body.
Flour
Coats the meat for browning and thickens the strained gravy into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Enriches the thickened gravy with fat, adding richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth that brighten the rich, meaty sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the richness of the veal and butter sauce.
Onions
Release sweetness and savory flavor into the broth as it reduces.

The step that matters

Thickening the strained gravy with butter and flour. Flour must be cooked into the butter and fat so it swells evenly; added raw or in clumps it leaves lumps and a starchy taste. Stir steadily while the sauce is smooth before adding the acidic ingredients.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, celery, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup, white wine. 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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