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Veal Pie

A savory pie made with veal steaks, sweetbreads, oysters, ham, and puff pastry, finished with veal gravy and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the veal steaks with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a little clove powder.

  2. Slice the sweetbreads and season them similarly.

  3. Line the edge of a dish with puff pastry.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the veal, hard-boiled egg yolks, sweetbreads, and oysters in the dish.

  2. Top the dish with thin slices of ham.

  3. Fill the dish with water.

  4. Cover the dish.

  5. Bake until done.

Finish

  1. After baking, pour in veal gravy and cream mixed with 1 teaspoon of flour through a funnel.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful during the long covered bake.
Sweetbreads
Add a soft, rich texture and delicate flavor to the filling.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savory flavor that seasons the filling as it cooks.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly, creamy texture to the layers.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that edges the dish and seals in the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness to the gravy poured in after baking.

The step that matters

Pour in the gravy and cream after baking. The flour mixed into the cream thickens the liquid when heated, and adding it through a funnel after baking keeps the pastry intact while the sauce settles into the filling without curdling or becoming lumpy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster, ham, cream. 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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