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Veal Pie, Superior

A savory pie with braised veal, sweetbread, ham, mushrooms, and lemon-seasoned gravy, topped with crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,632 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

Veal Pie, Superior

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Braise the veal in a mixture of stock and wine until half done.

  2. Butter a pie dish.

Assemble

  1. Layer sliced veal, sweetbread, ham, and mushrooms in the dish.

  2. Season each layer with salt, white pepper, lemon rind, and a few drops of lemon juice.

  3. Fill the dish three-quarters full with gravy from the veal.

  4. Add a little glaze to the dish.

  5. Cover with a thin crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake carefully until done.

  2. Serve hot.

  3. For a cold dish, replace sweetbread with hard-boiled eggs and a calf's kidney.

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. Wine + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

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

  5. Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,486 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main body of the pie and yields the gravy that moistens the filling.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the braising liquid, helping tenderise the veal.
Stock
Provides the liquid for braising and later the gravy that fills the pie.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that contrasts with the mild veal.
Button mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the filling as they cook.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich veal and gravy.

The step that matters

Bake carefully until done. Veal is lean and can dry out or toughen if overbaked, while the filling needs enough heat to cook through under the crust. The braised veal is already partly cooked, so gentle, watched baking keeps it moist.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, wine, ham, mushroom, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, wine, ham, mushroom, lemon. 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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