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Veal & Ham Pies

A savory pie filled with veal, ham, eggs, and stock, topped with pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 & Ham Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Put the veal bones in a pot with 1 carrot, 1 turnip, 1 onion, a bunch of herbs, and salt to make stock.

  2. Cut the veal and ham into neat pieces.

  3. Hard boil the eggs, shell them, then cut them into slices or mash them through a wire sieve.

Assemble

  1. Layer the veal and ham in a pie dish, seasoning as you fill it.

  2. Half fill the pie with stock.

  3. Partially cook the pie.

  4. Let the pie cool.

  5. Cover the pie with pastry.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the pie at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the lid.

  3. Pour in more stock thickened with gelatine.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Gives the filling its meaty body and rich flavour from the bones and meat.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firm, chewy texture to the filling.
White stock
Provides moisture that keeps the filling juicy as the pie cooks.
Gelatine
Sets the poured stock into a jelly that holds the pie together when cold.
Hard boiled eggs
Add firm, sliceable texture and mild richness to the filling.

The step that matters

Pouring in the gelatine-thickened stock. Gelatine only sets as it cools, so the stock needs time to chill fully before the pie is cut. Pouring it in too early, or cutting too soon, leaves the filling loose and runny.

“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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