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Veal Pie, Raised

A layered veal pie with ham, bacon, and gravy, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,626 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pie, Raised

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.

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Cut 1½ pounds of lean veal into neat pieces.

  2. Season the veal with pepper and chopped mushrooms.

  3. Mince the remaining veal with an equal amount of fat bacon. Pound the mixture.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne.

  5. Optionally add a small piece of onion, herbs, and spices to the forcemeat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a mold with pastry.

  2. Cover the bottom with forcemeat.

  3. Fill the pie with layers of thinly sliced ham, veal, and forcemeat.

  4. Top with thin slices of fat bacon and a bay leaf.

  5. Bake the pie at 350°F (175°C) for about two hours.

Add the gravy

  1. After baking, pour highly‑seasoned gravy through a strainer into the pie through the hole at the top.

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 + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

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

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the main meaty body of the filling and gives the pie its substance.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the minced forcemeat moist and rich during baking.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer bite between the layers.
Gravy (made from calf's foot and veal trimmings)
Adds moisture and gelatine that sets as the pie cools, enriching the filling.
Pastry
Forms the shell that holds the filling and contains the juices during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the gravy after baking. Gravy poured in through the top hole must be strained and well seasoned so it fills the cooled pie evenly and sets to a firm, clear jelly rather than leaving gaps or a thin, bland liquid.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, mushroom. 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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