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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, ham, mushrooms, parsley, shallot, and egg yolks, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal and Ham 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 the filling

  1. Season the veal and ham with salt and pepper.

  2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and lightly fry the mushrooms, parsley, and shallot.

  3. Add the Veloute sauce or stock and boil for 5 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie dish.

  2. Place the hard-boiled egg yolks in the cavities.

  3. Cover with puff pastry.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 hours.

  5. Serve.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

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 tender, mild flavor in the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavor that contrasts with the mild veal.
Veloute sauce or stock
Supplies liquid and body that moistens the meat and binds the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that rises and browns in the oven.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a firm, creamy texture to the filling.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy aroma and moisture as they soften in the butter.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce mixture for 5 minutes. Boiling reduces the thin liquid and cooks the shallot and mushrooms so the filling is not watery, which would otherwise make the pastry base soggy.

“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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