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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie with thinly sliced veal, ham, and hard‑boiled eggs, seasoned and baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, pepper, powdered sweet herbs, grated lemon rind, cayenne pepper, and mace.

  3. Roll each piece of veal in the seasoning mixture.

  4. In a pie dish, layer the seasoned veal, ham, and sliced hard‑boiled eggs alternately.

  5. Pile the mixture in the center of the dish and add 2 tablespoons of water.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the dish with rough puff pastry or puff pastry, decorating as desired.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Once baked, add seasoned stock or gelatin to the pie, which should set as a jelly when cold.

  4. Garnish with parsley if serving 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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Forms the main meaty body of the pie, cooking to tender slices when layered thinly.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer, meatier texture among the veal layers.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliced texture that contrasts with the tender meats.
Flour
Coats the veal and helps thicken the juices around the meat as it cooks.
Gelatin (in the method)
Sets the cooled liquid into a jelly that holds the pie together when served cold.

The step that matters

Adding the stock or gelatin after baking. Gelatin sets only as it cools, so the liquid must be added to a hot pie in the right amount; too much or too little leaves the jelly runny or absent when served cold.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, pepper, mace, lemon, ham, flour):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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