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Veal Pie

A veal pie with ham, potatoes, onions, butter, and puff pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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. In a stew pan, add veal pieces and cover with hot water.

  2. Add salt and simmer, skimming thoroughly.

  3. Once the veal is very tender, remove from heat and place in a pudding dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add chopped ham, potatoes, onion, and butter on top.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, then dredge with flour.

  3. Fill the dish nearly to the top with the cooking water.

  4. Cover with puff pastry and cut a slit in the center.

  5. Bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C).

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in water.
Puff pastry
Forms the golden, flaky crust that covers the pie while it bakes.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the filling as they cook in the pie.
Flour
Dredging the filling helps thicken the cooking liquid into a light gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the filling as it melts over the ingredients.

The step that matters

Simmering the veal until very tender. Simmering gently while skimming keeps the broth clear and lets the connective tissue in the veal break down slowly. Boiling hard toughens the meat, so it must be checked before it goes into the dish.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, onion, butter, flour):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, onion, butter, flour. 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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