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A Savory Veal Pie

A savory pie made with veal, spices, optional meatballs and oysters, topped with pie crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

A Savory Veal Pie

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. Cut the loin of veal into steaks.

  2. Season the veal with beaten mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the meat in a dish with forced meat balls and oysters if using.

  2. Add a little gravy.

  3. Cover the edge of the dish with pie crust and place a lid half an inch thick on top.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  5. Serve with lemon.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Meat + oystertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together536 recipes

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

  5. Veal + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,890 recipes

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

Mace and pepper 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 loin
Forms the main body of the pie, becoming tender and moist during slow baking.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and forms a sealed lid that holds in steam while baking.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor so the meat does not dry out in the oven.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor that complements the veal.

The step that matters

Covering the dish with the crust. The crust must seal fully around the edge so steam stays inside. If it leaks, the filling dries out and the gravy reduces too much before the veal is tender.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, pepper, meat, oyster. 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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