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A Very Rich Veal Pie

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Artichoke and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

A Very Rich Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Prepare and season the calf's head or feet as for a hash or fricassee.

  2. Cut the sweetbreads into pieces and season them.

  3. Enrich the mixture with forcemeat balls, cocks' combs, morels, truffles, button mushrooms, artichoke bottoms, and tops of asparagus.

  4. Serve hot with rich veal gravy thickened with cream and flour, and add white wine or lemon juice.

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. Artichoke + asparagustop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Artichoke + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together466 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mushroom + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (truffle, mushroom, artichoke, veal, cream, flour, white wine):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Spinachabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Chiveabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against truffle, mushroom, artichoke, veal, cream, flour, 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).

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