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Veal-and-Ham Patties

A savory patty made with veal, ham, and puff pastry, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Veal-and-Ham Patties

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.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan and stir in the flour until combined.

  2. Add the chopped veal, ham, cream, veal stock, lemon juice, essence of ham, lemon peel, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, and salt.

  3. Stir the mixture over low heat until well combined and heated through.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter patty pans and line them with puff pastry.

  2. Place a small piece of bread in each lined pan.

  3. Fill each pan with the meat mixture.

  4. Cover with more pastry, dampening the edges to seal.

  5. Brush the tops with beaten egg yolk.

  6. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked veal
Forms the main body of the filling, giving it its meaty texture.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour that complements the veal.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and carries the flour into a smooth base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and meat mixture so the filling holds together.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the filling texture.
Veal stock
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the filling.

The step that matters

Stir the filling over low heat until heated through. Gentle heat lets the flour thicken the cream and stock smoothly without scorching the butter or toughening the cooked meat, so the filling sets to a spoonable consistency inside the pastry.

“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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