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Veal Olive Pie, Superior

A savory pie of veal forcemeat balls, olives, eggs, mushrooms, cucumber, and gravy baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,176 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Veal Olive Pie, Superior

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.

Assemble

  1. Place the prepared olives in a pie dish, piling them highest in the center.

  2. Intermingle the forcemeat balls, halved egg yolks, stewed mushrooms, and sliced pickled cucumber among the olives.

  3. Pour the seasoned gravy over the olives, adding lemon juice and sherry.

  4. If desired, stir in a little cream.

Bake

  1. Cover the pie with pastry and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours.

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. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Olive + cucumbertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Olive + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,571 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Olives
Form the main filling and bulk of the pie, carrying the flavour of the dish.
Forcemeat balls
Add a rich, savoury, meaty body that holds its shape during baking.
Eggs
Halved yolks add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Gravy
Provides moisture and seasoning that surrounds the filling and keeps it from drying out.
Sherry
Adds aromatic depth and a subtle sweetness to the gravy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its fattiness.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the pie. Pastry must seal the dish so steam stays in and the gravy thickens and cooks through; too hot an oven can brown the crust before the filling heats evenly.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, veal, egg, mushroom, lemon, sherry, cream):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, veal, egg, mushroom, lemon, sherry, cream. 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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