Skip to main content
Main

Olive Pie

A savory pie with veal cutlets rolled around a mixture of oysters, suet, breadcrumbs, parsley, and spices, topped with puff pastry.

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

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Olive 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 veal cutlets to fit the pie size without needing to carve.

  2. Parboil and mince a few oysters, suet, and parsley.

  3. Mix the minced oysters, suet, bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, and egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the mixture over the veal cutlets and roll them up.

  2. Fill a pie dish with the rolled cutlets and cover with puff pastry.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 hours.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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
Form the main body of the pie and provide the meaty base that the filling is rolled into.
Oysters
Add a savoury, briny flavour to the stuffing once parboiled and minced.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the minced stuffing so it holds together.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing mixture together and add richness to it.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the rolled cutlets as they bake.

The step that matters

Rolling the cutlets around the stuffing. If the stuffing is spread too thickly or the cutlets are not sized to the dish, the roll may split or leave gaps during baking. Fitting the cutlets to the pie size keeps the filling sealed and the pastry evenly supported.

“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 oyster pie recipes

Boston 12Chicken 5 See all 191 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes