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Veal Pie, with Sweetbreads

A savory pie of veal and sweetbread, layered with optional oysters or mushrooms, topped with egg yolks and veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pie, with Sweetbreads

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 sweetbread

  1. Soak the sweetbread in water for 1 hour.

  2. Boil the sweetbread in salted water for 15 minutes, then slice it.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish and layer the veal and sweetbread alternately.

  2. Add oysters, mushrooms, or force-meat balls between the layers if desired.

  3. Place the hard-boiled egg yolks on top.

  4. Pour a small amount of gravy made from veal stock over the layers.

  5. Bake the pie covered at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ to 2 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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together318 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Veal + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together988 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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
Forms the main body of the pie, becoming tender during the long, covered baking.
Sweetbread
Adds a soft, delicate texture contrasting with the firmer veal.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly, creamy texture to the filling.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savory flavor so the layers do not dry out while baking.

The step that matters

Covered baking. Baking covered traps steam so the veal and sweetbread cook gently and stay moist; uncovered, the surface would dry before the meat is tender.

“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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