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Veal Turnovers

A pastry dish with veal, ham, egg, milk, bread crumbs, and seasonings baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Veal Turnovers

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. In a bowl, combine the finely chopped veal and ham.

  2. Mix in the beaten egg, a little milk, and the bread crumbs.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and cut into large circles.

  2. Place a tablespoon of the meat mixture on one side of each circle and fold over.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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 meaty body of the filling.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.
Egg
Binds the minced meat together so it holds its shape.
Bread
Absorbs moisture and keeps the filling tender and juicy.
Puff pastry
Bakes into flaky, airy layers that brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding the turnovers. If the pastry edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak during baking. Keeping the filling to one side and pressing the edges firmly helps the turnovers hold their shape and cook evenly.

“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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