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Olive Pie, Veal

A veal pie filled with olives, forcemeat, bacon, and gravy, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Olive Pie, Veal

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line the edges of a pie dish with puff pastry.

  3. Cut the veal into thin slices, about ¼ inch thick, 4 inches long, and 2 inches wide.

  4. Make the forcemeat by mixing minced veal, suet, bread‑crumbs, parsley, sweet herbs, salt, pepper, mace, lemon rind, and egg yolks.

Assemble

  1. Season the veal slices with salt and pepper, place a slice of bacon and a bit of forcemeat on each slice, and roll them up tightly.

  2. Form the remaining forcemeat into balls.

  3. Place the veal rolls and forcemeat balls in the pie dish with olives.

  4. Pour the seasoned gravy over the filling.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with a layer of puff pastry, brush with beaten egg, and bake for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fillet of veal
Forms the tender outer layer that wraps the forcemeat and bacon.
Suet
Melts during baking, adding richness and moisture to the forcemeat.
Bread-crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the forcemeat so it holds its shape.
Eggs
Egg yolks bind the forcemeat and help it set as it bakes.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Rolling the veal slices tightly. Tight rolls keep the bacon and forcemeat inside during baking, so the filling stays neat and the slices cook evenly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, parsley, pepper, lemon, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, parsley, 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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