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Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with stewed veal, ham, egg yolks, and gravy, 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: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the veal into collops.

  2. In a skillet, stir the veal with butter over medium heat until it begins to brown.

  3. Add enough water to cover the veal, along with pepper and salt, and let it stew until cooked through.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a pie with puff pastry, layering the veal, ham slices, hard-boiled egg yolks, and half of the veal gravy.

  2. Cover with pastry, trim neatly, and decorate the top with a star of leaves.

  3. Brush with egg wash and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Heat the remaining gravy with butter and pour it into the pie before serving.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  3. Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

  4. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 meat filling, becoming tender as it stews in water.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, crisp crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add a rich, creamy texture to the filling.
Ham
Adds salty, savory flavor to the layered filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the veal begin to brown in the skillet.

The step that matters

Browning the veal before stewing. Searing the meat in butter until it begins to brown builds deeper, savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Adding water too early leaves the veal pale and less flavorful.

“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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