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Veal Stew

A layered stew of veal, potatoes, salt pork, and seasonings simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the pot

  1. Layer sliced salt pork in the bottom of a pot and season with salt, pepper, sage, and onion.

  2. Add a layer of potato slices, followed by a layer of seasoned veal.

  3. Repeat layers until all veal is used, finishing with a layer of potato slices on top.

Cook

  1. Pour in water until it rises 1 inch above the layers.

  2. Cover the pot tightly and heat for 15 minutes.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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 and rich during long, gentle simmering.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking liquid and juices, becoming soft and thickening the stew slightly.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the pot, adding savoriness and richness to the broth.

The step that matters

Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours. Once the pot reaches heat, a low simmer lets the veal's connective tissue break down gradually. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and break up the potatoes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, potato, pork, pepper, sage):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, potato, pork, pepper, sage. 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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