Name: Veal Pot Pie
Ingredients: 1 pound veal, thinly sliced; ⅙ pound boiled ham, thinly sliced; ½ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ⅓ cup water; Pie crust for covering

Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Season the bottom of a dish with pepper and salt.
Layer the sliced ham and veal in the dish.
Add the water over the layers.

Cover and bake

Cover the dish with pie crust.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is 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.

Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,058 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: Forms the main body of the pie and becomes tender as it cooks.
Boiled ham: Adds salty, savory flavor that seasons the meat layers.
Pie crust: Seals the top so the filling steams and the crust browns in the oven.
Black pepper: Adds sharp aroma and gentle heat to the meat.

“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.