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Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with diced veal, onions, carrots, and herbs, topped with a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Veal Pie

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Sauté the onion and carrots in a pot until soft.

  2. Add the diced veal, beef broth, salt, pepper, and thyme; simmer for 30 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and cover with the pie crust.

  2. Bake for 30–40 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

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. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 filling, becoming tender as it simmers in the broth.
Onion
Softens and adds sweetness and savory depth to the filling base.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the filling as they soften.
Beef broth
Provides liquid that cooks the veal and keeps the filling moist.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven for a golden top.

The step that matters

Simmer the veal until tender before baking. Veal is lean and can turn dry or tough if it is not fully cooked. Simmering it in broth first gives the meat time to tenderize and the filling time to thicken slightly before the crust bakes.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, carrot, beef, pepper, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, carrot, beef, pepper, thyme. 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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