Skip to main content
Main

Veal Pie in a Dish

A layered pie with veal, ham or bacon, eggs, herbs, and stock baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pie in a Dish

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and assemble

  1. Prepare all ingredients: hops, parsley, shallots or onion, mushrooms, pepper, salt, mint, hard-boiled eggs, and second stock.

  2. Use leftover pastry to line a pie dish, creating an edge.

  3. Layer ham or bacon on the bottom, then sprinkle with prepared ingredients.

  4. Add a layer of veal and a quarter of a hard-boiled egg.

  5. Repeat layers until the dish is full, making the center higher than the sides.

  6. Add a little second stock to the filling.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cut a hole in the top and optionally decorate with pastry.

  3. Egg wash the top and notch the edges.

  4. Pour hot white stock into the pie when done.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Add structure and body to the filling as they set during baking.
Veal
Provides the meaty base and savory body of the filling.
Ham or bacon
Adds savory, salty flavor that seasons the layered filling.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the filling.

Flavor stand-ins for the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, parsley, shallot, mushroom, pepper, egg, ham):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Tarragonbetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, parsley, shallot, mushroom, pepper, egg, ham. 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.

More veal pie recipes

Cold 6 See all 129 →

You might also like

Mushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesParsnip CakesParsnip Cakes12 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes