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A Cold Veal Pie

A cold veal pie made with minced veal, ham, bacon, mushrooms, and herbs, baked and served chilled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Cold Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a mortar, pound the veal, minced ham, salt, pepper, spices, herbs, garlic or shallot, eggs, and gravy until well combined.

  3. Cover the bottom of a pan with thin slices of bacon.

Layer and assemble

  1. Spread a layer of forcemeat over the bacon.

  2. Add cutlets of veal seasoned with pepper and minced mushrooms.

  3. Repeat layering until the pan is full.

  4. Finish with a layer of forcemeat on top.

  5. Roll out the pie crust on buttered paper and cover the pie with it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1 hour.

  2. Let it cool.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the forcemeat.
Minced ham
Adds savory flavor and fat that keeps the forcemeat moist.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the pie together.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the forcemeat.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor as it renders into the layers.

The step that matters

Layering until the pan is full. Packing the layers evenly keeps the forcemeat dense and sliceable when cold, and avoids air pockets that weaken the set structure.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, egg, mushroom. 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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