Skip to main content
Main

Pie of Cold Veal and Ham

A savory pie with cold veal, thin ham, egg yolks, and optional oysters or mushrooms, topped with crust and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pie of Cold Veal and Ham

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat from the bones into ½ inch pieces and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Place the bones and fat in a saucepan, cover with water, and simmer until reduced by half.

  3. Remove the bones, thicken the gravy with butter and flour, and season to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with crust, layering veal and ham alternately, adding chopped egg yolks on each layer. Add oysters or mushrooms if desired.

  2. Cover with crust, leaving an opening in the center, and pour in some gravy.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve in the baking dish with remaining gravy in a sauce tureen.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

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

  4. Ham + oystertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

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

  5. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Cold veal
Provides the main meaty body of the filling.
Cold ham
Adds savory flavor and contrasting texture to the layered filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running off.
Butter
Enriches the gravy and helps the flour thicken it smoothly.
Yolks of eggs
Enrich the filling and set slightly during baking, adding richness.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Flour must be cooked with butter and the gravy kept at a simmer so it thickens smoothly without lumps or a raw starchy taste. Thin gravy would make the pie soggy.

“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

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipes