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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, ham, hard‑boiled eggs, parsley, and lemon juice, baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the veal into stripes.

  2. Cut the ham into small pieces.

  3. Season the veal.

  4. Roll the veal as directed for steak and kidney pie.

  5. Cut the hard-boiled eggs into quarters lengthwise.

Assemble the pie

  1. Half fill a pie dish with the rolls of veal and ham.

  2. Sprinkle half of the chopped parsley and lemon juice over the meat.

  3. Add pieces of hard-boiled eggs throughout.

  4. Fill the dish with the remaining meat.

  5. Sprinkle the rest of the parsley and lemon juice over the meat.

  6. Place the egg pieces among the meat again.

  7. Pour in the cold water.

  8. Cover the pie with rough puff, flaky, or short pastry as directed for steak pie.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 meat body, becoming tender and moist during long, gentle baking.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that contrasts with the mild veal.
Pastry
Encloses the filling, sealing in juices and forming the golden crust through browning.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, creamy texture between the layers of meat.
Flour
Thickens the cooking juices so they become a light gravy around the meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich meat.

The step that matters

Pour in the cold water. Cold water added before baking creates the savoury liquid that cooks with the meat; adding it too warm or too late can leave the veal dry or the gravy thin.

“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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