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A Ricii Veal Pie

A veal pie made with puff pastry, sweetbreads, oysters, ham, yolks, and veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Ricii Veal 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. Cut steaks from the neck or breast of veal and season with pepper, coarse sea salt, nutmeg, and a pinch of ground clove.

  2. Slice the sweetbreads and season them in the same manner.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay puff pastry on the edge of a dish.

  2. Layer the veal, yolks of hard-boiled eggs, sweetbreads, and oysters in the dish.

  3. Top with thin slices of ham and fill the dish with water.

  4. Cover the dish and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the veal gravy and cream with 1 teaspoon of flour.

  2. After baking, pour the gravy and cream through a funnel to fill the pie.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 layer and gives the pie its savory base.
Sweetbreads
Add a tender, delicate texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that encloses the filling.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the gravy poured into the pie.
Veal gravy
Supplies liquid and savory flavor to the filling after baking.
Flour
Thickens the boiled gravy and cream mixture.

The step that matters

Pouring the gravy and cream after baking. Flour thickens the cream and gravy only when it is boiled, so it must be fully heated before being poured in. Pouring it cold or unboiled through the funnel can leave it thin and unevenly distributed in the pie.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster, ham, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster, ham, cream. 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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