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A Rich Veal Pie

A savory pie made with veal, 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 ↓

A Rich Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Slice the sweetbreads and season them similarly.

  3. Line the dish with puff pastry.

Assemble and bake

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

  2. Top with thin slices of ham and fill with water.

  3. Cover and bake until done.

Finish

  1. After baking, pour in veal gravy and cream mixed with 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 that becomes tender and flavourful during the long bake.
Sweetbreads
Add a rich, delicate texture that contrasts with the firmer veal.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky crust that encloses the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a dense, creamy texture to the filling.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the filling.
Cream
Adds fat and richness to the gravy, giving it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Pouring in the gravy and cream after baking. The gravy and cream are added only after baking so the cream does not curdle or break under long heat and the pastry stays crisp. Mixing the flour into the cream first helps it blend smoothly into the liquid.

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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