Name: Haised Pie, of Veal and Ham
Ingredients: 3 to 4 lbs veal cutlets; a few slices of bacon or ham; pepper; coarse sea salt; nutmeg; allspice; forcemeat; 2 lbs hot-water paste; 1 pint good strong gravy

Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 3,331 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Haised Pie, of Veal and Ham

Ingredients

Directions

Make hot-water paste according to recipe.
Form the pie crust by hand or cut out pieces for the top and bottom, and a long piece for the sides.
Attach the bottom and side pieces with egg, pinching the edges together.
Line the pie with forcemeat, then add a layer of veal and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and allspice.
Add a layer of sliced bacon or cooked ham, followed by another layer of forcemeat, veal, seasoning, and bacon, repeating until the meat is about an inch above the crust.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,331 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together3,264 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together10,049 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the nutmeg

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

Clovebetter flavor fit
Marjorambetter flavor fit
Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).