Skip to main content
Main

Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with diced veal, corned ham, mushrooms, and gravy, topped with a crust and sliced hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mushroom and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Heat the gravy in a saucepan.

  3. Season well.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Add the tomato ketchup.

  6. Stir in the diced veal, ham, mushrooms.

  7. Bring to a boil.

  8. Remove from heat.

  9. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill a deep bake‑dish with the mixture.

  2. Cover with sliced hard‑boiled eggs.

  3. Top with pie crust.

  4. Cut a slit in the center.

  5. Brush the crust with egg white.

  6. Bake until golden brown.

  7. Bake for an additional minute before serving.

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. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked veal
Provides the main meaty body of the filling.
Corned ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that contrasts with the veal.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so the filling holds together when cut.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set gently when heated.
Gravy
Supplies the moist, savoury liquid that binds the filling.
Egg white
Brushed on the crust to give it a glossy, browned finish.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken by setting when heated. Adding them to a boiling mixture can scramble them and leave a grainy texture, so they should go in after the heat is removed.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, mushroom, flour, tomato, ketchup):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, mushroom, flour, tomato, ketchup. 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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipes