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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, ham, mushrooms, onions, and stock, topped with biscuit dough and hard‑boiled egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

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 the filling

  1. Trim the veal and ham, cut into pieces, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  2. Chop a handful of mushrooms and some parsley very finely.

  3. Combine the mushrooms, parsley, butter, minced onion, and water in a small saucepan. Simmer until the water is almost evaporated.

  4. Add the stock to the mixture and stir well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pan with rich biscuit dough.

  2. Pour the mixture into the lined pan.

  3. Slice the yolks of hard-boiled eggs over the top.

  4. Add the top crust of biscuit dough.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 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

Veal
Provides the main meaty body of the filling once cooked through.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour that complements the mild veal.
Rich biscuit dough
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the filling.
Stock
Supplies liquid and savoury depth that moistens the filling.
Hard boiled eggs
Add firm texture and richness when sliced over the filling.

The step that matters

Simmer until the water is almost evaporated. Reducing the water before adding stock concentrates the flavour of the vegetables and keeps the filling from becoming soggy under the crust.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, mushroom, parsley, butter, biscuit):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, mushroom, parsley, butter, biscuit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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