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With Veal

A savory pie of ham and veal with hard‑boiled eggs, jelly, and a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

With Veal

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 filling

  1. Chop equal quantities of ham and veal finely.

  2. Layer the chopped meat in a baking dish with slices of hard-boiled eggs in between.

  3. Boil the water from cooking the veal with the bones until it jellies when cold.

  4. Flavor the jelly with celery, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  5. Pour the flavored jelly over the meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pie with a pie crust ½ inch thick.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is done.

  3. Slice thin when cold.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Ham + vealtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Veal + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,336 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham and veal
Provide the meat that forms the body and rich savory flavor of the pie.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm slices that give structure and a mild, creamy richness to the filling.
Water (from cooking veal)
Carries meat gelatin, which sets into a jelly that holds the pie together when cold.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, giving the pie its crisp top.

The step that matters

Boil the veal water until it jellies when cold. The jelly sets only if enough gelatin from the bones and meat is concentrated by boiling. Too little reduction leaves a runny filling that will not slice cleanly when cold.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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