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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie made with veal, ham, herbs, spices, egg yolks, and puff pastry.

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 and 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.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cut the veal into square pieces.

  2. Layer the veal in a pie dish.

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

  4. Add a layer of thinly sliced ham on top.

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

  6. Cover the edge of the dish with puff pastry.

  7. Pour in water.

  8. Cover with more pastry.

  9. Decorate with leaves.

  10. Brush with egg yolk.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 to 1½ hours, longer if the pie is large.

  2. After baking, pour in nearly ½ pint of strong gravy through a funnel.

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 bulk of the filling, becoming tender and juicy as it cooks slowly under pastry.
Boiled ham
Adds savory, salty flavour that contrasts with the mild veal.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the filling with richness and a soft, creamy texture.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, golden crust that seals in the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring in the gravy after baking. The gravy is added after baking so it stays liquid and fills the gaps left as the meat shrinks. Adding it before baking would be absorbed or lost, and pouring it through a funnel keeps it from disturbing the crust.

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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