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Stewed Veal with Dumplings

A slow‑cooked veal stew enriched with butter, onion, and dumplings made from flour, lard, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Stewed Veal with Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the veal

  1. Add veal and salt to taste to a pot.

  2. Remove any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Add butter and sliced onion.

  4. Stew for 1½ hours.

Make and cook the dumplings

  1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt for the dumplings.

  2. Work in lard until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Stir in milk mixed with beaten egg.

  4. Add more milk if needed for softness.

  5. Drop spoonfuls of the dumpling mixture onto the meat.

  6. Cover and cook for 20 minutes without removing the lid.

Thicken and serve

  1. Remove meat and dumplings to a platter.

  2. Mix 2 tablespoons flour with a little cold water until smooth.

  3. Stir the mixture into the broth.

  4. Cook until the broth thickens.

  5. Pour the thickened broth over 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, slow stew.
Flour
Thickens the broth and gives the dumplings their structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dumpling dough so it rises and turns light.
Lard
Coats flour particles, keeping the dumplings tender and short rather than tough.
Egg
Binds the dumpling dough and adds richness and structure.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dumpling dough becomes soft and moist.

The step that matters

Cover and cook the dumplings without lifting the lid. Lifting the lid lets steam escape, so the dumplings can cool, stall their rise and turn heavy. Keeping the pot covered traps steam that cooks them through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, flour, egg, milk):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, flour, egg, milk. 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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