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An Olive Pie

A veal pie with breadcrumbs, lemon peel, nutmeg, pepper, and sea salt, baked with gravy and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

An Olive Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the veal

  1. Rub the veal slices with eggs.

  2. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, lemon peel, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Roll the slices tightly and place them in a pewter dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the gravy over the rolled veal and top with butter.

  2. Make a light pastry and cover the dish, rolling the lid to 1/2 inch thick.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the pie, cooking into tender, savoury meat once rolled and baked.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the breadcrumbs and seasonings adhere to the veal slices.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and add a light, tender texture to the coating around the veal.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savoury depth so the veal stays juicy during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enriches flavour and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Rolling the veal tightly. Tight rolling keeps the slices compact so they cook evenly and hold their shape. Loose rolls can unwind or dry out unevenly in the oven.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, bread, lemon, pepper, butter. 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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