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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, ham, and optional egg yolks and mushrooms, topped with pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: White pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,695 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix salt, pepper, mace, and lemon rind in a bowl.

  3. Layer veal and ham in a pie dish, sprinkling seasoning over each layer of veal.

  4. If using, add egg yolks and mushrooms between layers, with ham on top.

  5. Pour a little cold water over the meat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the edges of the dish with pastry and cover with a crust.

  2. Make a hole in the crust for steam to escape.

  3. Bake for about 2.5 hours, covering with greased paper once the crust rises.

Serve

  1. Boil veal bones in slightly salted water for 2 hours, strain, and pour the hot liquid into the pie just before serving.

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. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  4. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

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 long, gentle cooking and forms the body of the pie.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour that seasons the layered meat as it cooks.
Pastry
Encloses the filling, trapping moisture and steam so the meat braises in its own juices.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling where they are included.

The step that matters

Covering the crust with greased paper. Pastry that browns too early can burn before the long bake finishes. Covering it once it rises shields the crust while the meat below keeps cooking through gently.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, oyster, ham, white pepper, lemon, egg, mushroom):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, oyster, ham, white pepper, lemon, egg, 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.

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