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Olive Pie

A savory pie filled with thin veal slices, oysters, herbs, and suet, topped with butter and served with anchovy gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Olive Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Prepare your pie crust.

  2. Take thin slices of veal and hack them with the back of a knife.

  3. Season the veal with salt, pepper, cloves, and mace.

  4. Wash the veal slices with a brush dipped in beaten eggs.

  5. Mix the chopped herbs, minced egg yolks, chopped oysters, and shredded suet together.

  6. Sprinkle the mixture over the veal slices and add a little orange-flower water.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll the veal slices tightly and place them in the pie crust.

  2. Sprinkle any remaining seasoning over the top and add butter.

  3. Close the pie and bake it in the oven.

  4. When done, pour hot gravy with dissolved anchovy over the pie.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the bulk of the pie and becomes tender and juicy as it cooks.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor that complements the rich veal.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly texture to the filling.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and flavorful during baking.
Eggs
Beaten eggs brushed on the veal help bind and give a glossy, browned surface.

The step that matters

Rolling the veal slices tightly. Tight rolls keep the filling enclosed and help the veal cook evenly, so the layers hold together when the pie is sliced.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, clove, egg, thyme, parsley, spinach):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, clove, egg, thyme, parsley, spinach. 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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