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Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with tender veal, butter, and flour, baked with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Parboil the veal

  1. Place the veal in a stewpan.

  2. Cover with hot water.

  3. Add the salt.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Skim off any scum.

  6. Remove the meat.

  7. Let it cool.

  8. Discard small bones.

Assemble the pie

  1. Grease a pie dish.

  2. Line it with pie paste.

  3. Layer some of the parboiled meat in the dish.

  4. Add bits of butter.

  5. Sprinkle with pepper.

  6. Dredge with wheat flour until it looks white.

  7. Fill with some of the reserved cooking water.

  8. Roll out a top crust, making it about ½ inch thick.

  9. Cut a slit in the center with small incisions on either side.

  10. Place skewers across the pie.

  11. Cover with the crust.

  12. Trim the edges.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for one hour.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Pepper + wheattop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

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

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and savory during parboiling and baking.
Wheat flour
Dredging the meat thickens the reserved cooking liquid into a rich, cohesive filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, moistening the meat as it bakes.
Pie paste
Forms the structural crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Dredge with wheat flour until it looks white. Flour coats the meat and dissolves into the cooking water when baked, thickening the liquid. Too little leaves the filling runny; too much makes it pasty and dull.

“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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