Skip to main content
Main

Veal and Ham Pie

A baked pie of seasoned veal and ham with hard‑boiled eggs, covered in puff pastry and set with stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. Mix the flour, salt, pepper, lemon rind, and cayenne on a plate.

  3. Coat each piece of veal in the seasoning and layer in a pie dish with ham and sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  4. Pile the mixture in the center of the dish and add 2 tablespoons of water.

Cover and bake

  1. Line the edge of the dish with pastry, cover, and decorate the top.

  2. Bake until risen, then reduce the heat and cook slowly for about 1½ hours.

  3. After baking, add a little seasoned stock to the pie, which should set to a jelly when cold.

  4. Garnish with parsley if serving cold.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main meat body of the pie, becoming tender during slow cooking.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour that contrasts with the mild veal.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliced texture inside the pie.
Flour
Coats the meat and helps thicken the juices around it.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and browns in the hot oven to form a crust.

The step that matters

Slow cooking after the initial bake. Reducing the heat after the pastry has risen lets the veal cook gently and become tender without drying or toughening. Cooking too hot for too long can make the meat tough and dry.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes