Skip to main content
Main

Veal Pie

A savory pie with veal, bacon, and a sour milk crust, topped with a beaten egg and flour mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal 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 and bacon into small pieces.

  2. Boil the meat in a little water until nearly tender.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll out the sour milk crust.

  2. Line a deep pie dish with the crust, leaving the bottom open.

  3. Place a teacup in the middle and layer the meat around it.

  4. Beat the raw egg with flour and mix in the gravy, adding pepper, salt, and catsup.

  5. Pour half of the mixture over the meat and save the rest.

  6. Cover the pie with the crust, wetting the edges to seal.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Veal
Provides the main meat and body of the filling once cooked until tender.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the meat filling.
Raw egg
Binds the gravy mixture so it sets and holds together when baked.
Flour
Thickens the egg and gravy mixture so it becomes smooth and cohesive.
Sour milk crust
Forms the pastry shell and top, browning in the oven around the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the raw egg with flour before mixing in the gravy. Beating the egg with flour first prevents lumps and lets the egg and starch blend evenly, so the mixture thickens and sets smoothly when baked rather than curdling in patches.

“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.

More veal pie recipes

Cold 6 See all 129 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes