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Veal Pates

A savory pastry dish of minced veal and ham baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Pates

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Mix the minced veal and ham in a bowl, using two‑thirds veal and one‑third ham.

  3. Season the mixture with pepper, salt, and lemon peel.

  4. Wet the mixture with gravy and milk until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Line pate tins with puff pastry and fill with the meat mixture.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot in the tins or let cool and serve on a dish with parsley.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast veal
Forms the main meaty body of the filling.
Cold ham
Adds savory flavor and a firmer bite to the filling.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth to the meat mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness so the filling stays tender when baked.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden, flaky shell around the filling.

The step that matters

Wetting the mixture with gravy and milk. Minced meat dries out easily in the oven, so the liquid must be fully worked in for the filling to stay moist and tender rather than crumbly.

“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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