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Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with tender veal, optional corned pork or sweet ham, baked in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the veal

  1. Combine veal and hot water in a stewpan until covered. Add salt and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  2. Cook until the meat is tender, then transfer to a dish to cool. Remove all small bones.

Assemble the pie

  1. Grease a tin or earthen basin with butter and line it with pie paste.

  2. Layer half of the parboiled meat in the basin, adding bits of butter the size of a hickory nut on top.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper and dredge with flour until it looks white. Fill nearly to the top with the cooking water.

Bake and serve

  1. Roll out a cover for the pie crust, making it about ½ inch thick. Cut a slit in the center and make small incisions on either side.

  2. Place the crust on top, trim the edges, and bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°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. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Wheat + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 body of the pie and becomes tender when simmered.
Wheat flour
Dredging the meat thickens the cooking liquid into a rich, lightly set gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts into the meat and juices.
Pie paste
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and holds in the juices.

The step that matters

Skimming the stewpan while the veal comes to a boil. Scum rising from the meat can cloud the cooking liquid and leave an unclean flavour in the gravy. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and the filling tasting fresh.

“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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