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Veal Pie

A savory pie made with veal cutlets, bacon or ham, herbs, mace, and gravy, baked under a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the veal cutlets into square pieces and season with pepper, salt, and pounded mace.

  2. Place the seasoned cutlets in a pie dish and sprinkle the savory herbs over them.

  3. Add 1 or 2 slices of cooked lean bacon or ham on top to prevent the veal from turning red.

  4. Pour in a little water and cover with pie crust, decorating as desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Brush the crust with egg yolk and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1.5 hours.

  2. After baking, pour in the gravy.

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. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 cutlets
Provide the meat that becomes tender and juicy as it cooks under the crust.
Bacon or ham
Adds savory, salty fat that flavors the meat and helps keep the veal from turning red.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the pie after baking.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and holds in steam, keeping the veal moist as it cooks.

The step that matters

Bake until the veal is fully cooked. The veal must reach a safe internal temperature while staying moist. Baking at the stated heat for the full time lets the meat cook through, and the covered crust traps steam so the cutlets do not dry out.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, 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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