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Veal and Ham Patties

A pastry-wrapped patty made from diced veal and ham, seasoned with lemon rind, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 and Ham Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine diced veal, ham, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and stock or water in a bowl.

Assemble the patties

  1. Prepare puff pastry as directed and roll it out thinly.

  2. Cut out rounds slightly larger than patty pans, reserving six for the tops.

  3. Place a round of pastry in each patty pan.

  4. Fill each pan with the meat mixture.

  5. Moisten the edges of the pastry with water.

  6. Top each patty with a reserved pastry round, pressing the edges together and notching them.

  7. Make a small hole in the center of each top and decorate with pastry leaves.

  8. Brush the tops with egg or milk.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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 filling, cooked and diced so it stays tender in the patty.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor that complements the veal in the filling.
Puff pastry
Its layers puff and crisp in the oven, forming the flaky case and lid.
Stock or water
Adds moisture to the filling so it stays juicy while baking.

The step that matters

Pressing and notching the pastry edges. Sealing the top and bottom layers tightly keeps the juices in and lets the pastry rise upward. A loose seal can leak filling and weaken the puff.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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