Why it works: Milk and butter 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
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the pot
Cut the veal into serving pieces.
Place the veal in a fire-proof stewing pot. Season the veal with salt and pepper.
Add the onion and mace to the pot. Pour the milk into the pot. Cover the pot tightly.
Cook the stew
Cook gently in the oven at 300°F (150°C) or on the stove for about 2 to 3 hours.
Make the sauce and serve
Knead the butter and flour together until smooth. Stir the mixture into the milk.
If using flour, allow it to cook for at least 10 minutes.
Transfer the meat to a hot dish. Add the cream or milk to the sauce. Season the sauce to taste. Strain the sauce over the meat.
Add 1 or 2 drops of caramel for color if desired.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Becomes tender and flavorful during long, gentle moist cooking.
- Milk
- Forms the cooking liquid and, with the thickener, the body of the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and smooth flavor to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the finished sauce.
The step that matters
Cooking the flour in the sauce. Flour must cook for at least 10 minutes so its raw starch swells fully and loses its pasty, floury taste. Undercooked flour leaves the sauce dull and tasting raw.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, cream, butter, flour, onion, pepper):
- Nutmegfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, cream, butter, flour, onion, pepper. 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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