Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Veal Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Cut steaks from the neck or breast of veal and season with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a pinch of clove.
Slice the sweetbreads and season them similarly.
Line a dish with puff pastry, then layer in the veal, yolks of hard-boiled eggs, sweetbreads, and oysters.
Top with thin slices of ham and fill the dish with water.
Cover and bake until done, then pour in veal gravy mixed with cream and thickened with flour through a funnel.
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.
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Truffle + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,900 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together13,015 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together815 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
The recipe marks mace as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, nutmeg, ham, egg, truffle, mushroom):
- Marjoramfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, ham, egg, truffle, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More veal pie recipes
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