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Veal Aijd Ham Pie

A savory pie of layered veal, ham, herbs, and egg yolks, topped with puff pastry and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Aijd Ham Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the veal into square pieces and layer them in a pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle with herbs, spices, lemon peel, and sliced egg yolks.

  3. Thinly slice the ham and add a layer on top.

  4. Repeat layering until the dish is full, ensuring ham is on top.

Seal and bake

  1. Cover the edge of the dish with puff pastry and pour in ½ pint of water.

  2. Seal with crust, decorate with pastry leaves, and brush with egg yolk.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours, longer if the pie is large.

Add the gravy

  1. After baking, pour in ¾ pint of strong gravy through a funnel.

  2. Ensure the gravy is thick enough to set into a firm jelly when cold.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlets
Forms the main meat body of the pie and provides most of its savoury flavour.
Boiled ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and layers of meat that complement the veal.
Egg yolks
Add richness and body to the filling, and brushed on top they help the crust brown.
Gravy
Its gelatine sets into a jelly when cold, giving the cooled pie a firm, sliceable texture.

The step that matters

Make the gravy thick enough to set. Gravy poured in after baking only firms into a jelly when cold if it is rich and well thickened. Gelatine from the meat sets as it cools, so weak gravy leaves the pie runny.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, nutmeg, pepper, lemon, egg. 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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