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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with thinly sliced veal, ham, and hard‑boiled eggs, seasoned and baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 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

  1. Cut the veal and ham into very thin pieces.

  2. Mix the flour, salt, black pepper, lemon rind, and cayenne on a plate.

  3. Roll each piece of veal in the seasoning.

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer the seasoned veal with slices of ham and hard-boiled eggs in a pie dish.

  2. Pile the mixture in the center of the dish.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of water to the mixture.

  4. Line the edge of the dish with rough puff pastry.

  5. Cover the pastry and decorate the top.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until risen.

  2. Reduce the heat to 300°F (150°C) and cook slowly for about 1 hour.

  3. Add a little seasoned stock to the pie; it should set into a jelly when cold.

  4. Garnish with parsley if serving cold.

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. Pepper + lemontop 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
Provides the main meat body and texture once cooked slowly in the pie.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour that complements the veal.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add firm, set texture and richness to the filling.
Flour
Coats the veal pieces and helps thicken the juices around them.

The step that matters

Slow cooking after the initial bake. Dropping the oven to 300°F lets the meat cook gently and tender without drying out, while the stock added later sets into a jelly as it cools because of its natural gelatin.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, egg, flour, pepper, lemon):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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