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 ↓
Baked 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.
Make the gravy
Stew the veal in enough water to fill the pie dish until nearly done.
Remove the veal and season the gravy with pepper, salt, and mace.
Mix the flour with the butter and stir it into the gravy.
Assemble and bake
Place the veal in the dish with a small cup upside down in the center to hold the gravy.
Pour the gravy over the veal.
Prepare a plain pie crust and place a strip around the edge of the dish.
Cover the dish with the crust, cutting two or three slits in it.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is done.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Veal + macetop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,761 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Forms the main filling and becomes tender when stewed in water.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy so it coats the veal rather than running off.
- Butter
- Adds richness and smooths the gravy as it is stirred in with the flour.
- Plain pie crust
- Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the top.
The step that matters
Thickening the gravy with flour and butter. Stirring flour and butter into hot liquid can leave lumps if the flour is not fully blended first. Mixing the flour with the butter before adding it helps it disperse evenly, giving a smooth gravy that thickens properly.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, flour, butter):
- Parsleyfits better
- Sagefits better
- Turmericfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, flour, butter. 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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