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Ham and Veal Pates

A savory pâté made with veal, ham, eggs, and a brown sauce of milk, cream, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ham and Veal Pates

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Make a brown sauce by boiling milk, cream, browned flour, butter, cayenne pepper, and minced onion.

Assemble and fill

  1. Chop the ham, eggs, and veal very fine.

  2. Add the tomato ketchup to the chopped mixture.

  3. Stir in the brown sauce.

  4. Fill the pates with the mixture.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the main meat body and texture of the pâté filling.
Eggs
Bind the chopped mixture and help it set firm when cooked.
Browned flour
Thickens the brown sauce so it coats the chopped meat and holds it together.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the brown sauce, softening its texture.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Chopping the ham, eggs, and veal very fine. Finely chopped meat blends evenly with the sauce and gives a smooth, spreadable pâté texture. Coarse pieces stay chunky and can make the filling crumbly rather than cohesive.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, ham, egg, butter, milk, pepper. 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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