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Veal Pie

A baked pie with tender veal, gravy, and biscuit-like crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Veal Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the veal

  1. Cook the veal until tender.

  2. Add salt to the veal.

  3. Remove the meat from the bones. Cut the meat into pieces.

  4. Place the meat in a baking dish or pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Add flour to the broth and mix until smooth with water. Season the gravy with salt, butter, and pepper to taste.

  2. Pour the gravy over the meat, ensuring it covers the meat adequately.

Make the crust and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 quart of flour, 3 heaping teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ½ cup of lard until it resembles biscuit dough. Roll the dough to ½ inch thick.

  2. Place the dough over the pan like a chicken pie.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes or until the crust is done.

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. Flour + peppertop 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. Butter + peppertop 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, which becomes tender through long cooking in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth gravy as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the crust rises and turns light.
Lard
Cuts into the flour to make the crust tender and flaky.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Rubbing the lard into the flour. Mixing until the dough resembles biscuit dough keeps fat in distinct pieces, which makes the crust tender and flaky. Overworking it develops gluten and makes the crust tough.

“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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