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Another Veal Pie

A savory pie with veal, sweetbreads, oysters, forcemeat balls, eggs, stock, wine, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Another 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the veal into steaks and season with white pepper, coarse sea salt, grated nutmeg, mace, and lemon peel.

  2. Layer the seasoned veal in the bottom of a dish.

  3. Add slices of sweetbreads seasoned with the same spices.

  4. Include oysters, forcemeat balls, and yolks of hard-boiled eggs.

  5. Pour in the white stock, white wine, and lemon pickle.

Bake

  1. Cover the edge of the dish with puff pastry and then cover the entire dish.

  2. Bake for 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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 + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin or breast of veal
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, covered baking.
Sweetbreads
Adds a rich, delicate texture and savoury depth to the filling.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour that seasons the meat and stock.
Yolks of hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a creamy texture to the filling.
White stock
Supplies moisture that keeps the filling juicy as it bakes.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden, flaky crust that seals the dish.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry lid. The pastry must seal fully around the dish edge so steam builds inside and cooks the filling evenly. A gap lets the liquid escape, leaving the meat drier and the crust soggy or underbaked.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, nutmeg, mace, lemon, oyster, egg, white wine):

  1. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Thymebetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, nutmeg, mace, lemon, oyster, egg, white wine. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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