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Veal Pie

A savory pie of tender veal, butter, flour, and water, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Cook the veal

  1. Place veal in a stew pan and cover with water.

  2. Add salt and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Discard small bones.

Assemble the pie

  1. Butter a 2-quart baking dish.

  2. Line it with pie pastry.

  3. Fill halfway with the parboiled veal.

  4. Dot the meat with butter.

  5. Sprinkle with pepper.

  6. Dust with flour until white.

  7. Pour in enough of the reserved cooking water to nearly fill the dish.

  8. Roll out the puff pastry for the top crust to ½ inch thick.

  9. Cut a slit in the center. Make small incisions on either side.

  10. Place the crust on top and trim the edges.

  11. Bake for 1 hour in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Wheat + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together984 recipes

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

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the meat filling, which becomes tender through slow simmering in water.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat and enriches the flavor of the filling.
Wheat flour
Dusted over the filling, it thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden top crust that rises and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmer the veal gently until tender. Boiling hard toughens the muscle proteins and skimming removes scum that can cloud the broth. Cooking until the meat is fully tender ensures it stays soft after baking.

“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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