Why it works: Pepper and lemon 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 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.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Season veal cutlets with pepper, coarse sea salt, and pounded mace.
Place hard-boiled egg yolks between the meat or use forcemeat balls.
To make forcemeat balls, pound equal parts of lean veal and beef suet in a mortar.
Add sweet herbs, nutmeg, mace, and finely chopped lemon peel.
Mix in enough egg yolk to form a paste and shape into small balls.
Intermingle the forcemeat balls with the veal in the pie.
Pour in good rich gravy and sprinkle chopped onion, shallot, and green parsley over the meat.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
-
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, egg, beef, nutmeg, lemon, onion):
- Parsleyfits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, egg, beef, nutmeg, lemon, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More veal pie recipes
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