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Pie of Cold Veal

A pie made with cold veal pieces, flour and butter crust, baked until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pie of Cold Veal

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.

Prepare

  1. Season the veal pieces with pepper and salt.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and butter to form a paste.

Assemble

  1. Line the bottom and sides of a deep pie dish with the paste.

  2. Place the seasoned veal in the dish and pour in some cold gravy.

  3. Cover the top with the remaining paste, leaving a small opening in the center.

  4. Decorate the opening with leaves of paste.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is brown.

  2. Serve the pie warm.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 filling that cooks through inside the crust.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste that builds the structure of the pie crust.
Butter
Adds fat to the paste, giving the crust tenderness and richness.
Cold gravy from cooked veal
Adds moisture and flavor to the veal filling inside the pie.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is brown. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction and sugar caramelization on the crust surface. Pull the pie too early and the paste stays pale and doughy, while the filling may not be heated through.

“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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