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Veal Pie

A savory pie with veal, ham, hard‑boiled egg yolks, mushrooms, and a butter‑flour crust, baked with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the bone, fat, and skin from the veal.

  2. Place the trimmings in a saucepan with ½ pint of water to stew for gravy.

  3. Make a dough with 1 pound of butter and 2 pounds of flour, then divide it into two pieces.

  4. Roll out one piece thickly to cover the sides and bottom of a deep dish.

  5. Layer the veal seasoned with black pepper, followed by a layer of cold ham, then more veal, more ham, and intersperse with yolks of hard‑boiled eggs.

  6. Add small button mushrooms if available.

  7. Pour in the gravy from the trimmings.

Cover and bake

  1. Cover with the second piece of dough, notching the edge and decorating the center with a paste flower.

  2. Bake the pie at 350°F (175°C) for at least 2.5 hours.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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
Provides the main meat body that becomes tender and juicy during long, slow baking.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich, tender, and flaky as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the dough's structure, setting into a sturdy crust that holds the filling.
Yolks of hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
Cold ham
Adds savory flavor and salty depth throughout the layered filling.

The step that matters

Pour in the gravy from the trimmings. Gravy added before baking keeps the meat moist as it cooks slowly. Pouring it in after the meat is layered helps it reach the filling evenly, while the stewed trimmings give concentrated flavor.

“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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