Name: Pie of Cold Veal
Ingredients: 2 pounds veal, cut into small pieces; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; 2 pounds all-purpose flour; 1 pound butter; cold gravy, as needed

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pie of Cold Veal

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.

Prepare

Season the veal with pepper and salt.
Make a paste by mixing the flour and butter.
Grease the bottom and sides of a deep pie dish with some of the paste.

Assemble

Place the seasoned veal in the dish and add some cold gravy.
Cover the top with the remaining paste, leaving an opening in the center.
Decorate the opening with leaves of paste.

Bake and serve

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is brown.
Serve the pie hot.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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: Forms the savory filling that the pie is built around.
All-purpose flour: Forms the paste that structures the crust and holds the pie together.
Butter: Adds fat to the paste, giving the crust richness and tenderness.
Cold gravy: Adds moisture to the filling so the meat stays juicy.

“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.