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Veal Pie

A pie made with veal and bacon, baked with a sour milk crust and a gravy of egg, flour, pepper, salt, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pie

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. Boil the veal and bacon in a little water until nearly tender.

  2. Roll out the sour milk crust and cut it to fit a deep pie dish.

  3. Line the dish with the crust, leaving the bottom open.

  4. Place a teacup in the center and layer the meat around it.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the raw egg with a little flour and mix in the gravy.

  2. Add pepper, salt, and catsup to the mixture, then pour half over the meat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the pie with the remaining crust, wetting the edges to seal.

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

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 filling, becoming tender as it is cooked through.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the meat and gravy.
Raw egg
Binds the gravy mixture so it sets and holds together when baked.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat rather than running out.
Sour milk crust
Forms the structural pastry that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the raw egg with flour before adding the gravy. Egg and flour mixed into hot liquid can clump if added carelessly. Beating them smooth first helps the gravy thicken and set evenly.

“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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