Skip to main content
Main

Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with tender veal, carrots, onions, and optional mushrooms or potatoes, thickened with flour and seasoned with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Wash the veal and cut it into small pieces.

  2. Cover the veal with cold water and bring to a boil, skimming off impurities.

Make the filling

  1. Add the carrot and onion, then simmer until the veal is tender.

  2. Thicken the stock with flour moistened in cold water.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and parsley.

  4. If desired, add mushrooms or diced potatoes.

Bake

  1. Cover with a good crust and bake.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering and forms the body of the pie.
Flour
Thickens the cooking stock into a sauce that holds the filling together.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the stock as it simmers.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer the veal until tender. Veal shoulder and leg are tough cuts that need slow, gentle simmering to break down connective tissue. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the stock, so keep it at a gentle simmer until fork-tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, flour, pepper, parsley, mushroom):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, flour, pepper, parsley, mushroom. 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.

More veal pie recipes

Cold 6 See all 129 →

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes