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Veal Pie, Solid

A solid veal pie with eggs, beetroot, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal Pie, Solid

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the veal

  1. Place the knuckle of veal in a stewpan and cover with water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the meat is tender.

  3. Let the meat cool.

  4. Cut it into small pieces.

Assemble the pie

  1. Grease a round or oval dish with butter.

  2. Arrange the yolks and whites of hard-boiled eggs neatly on the bottom.

  3. Layer pieces of meat and gristle over the eggs, seasoning with salt, pepper, mace, and lemon rind.

  4. Pour in a little of the gravy, which should form a strong jelly when cold.

  5. Fill the dish with meat, hard-boiled eggs, and sliced beetroot for color contrast.

  6. Cover the ingredients with more gravy.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Let it cool completely before turning it out.

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

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

  2. Lemon + beetroottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together574 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + beetroottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,682 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Knuckle of veal
Provides meat and gristle that break down into a gelatin-rich gravy when simmered.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, sliced structure and a contrasting texture between layers of meat.
Gravy
Gelatin from the simmered veal sets when cold, holding the pie together and keeping it moist.
Beetroot
Adds colour contrast between the layers of meat and egg.

The step that matters

Pour in the gravy before assembling the layers. The gravy must be strongly gelled when cold, since its gelatin is what sets the pie. A weak or under-reduced gravy will leave the pie loose and unable to hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, egg, pepper, lemon, beetroot, meat):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, egg, pepper, lemon, beetroot, meat. 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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