Name: Veal and Ham Pie
Ingredients: 2 pounds veal cutlet; pepper to taste; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 pound raw or cooked ham, sliced; forced or sausage meat (to taste); 1 cup stewed button mushrooms; 3 hard-boiled egg yolks; ½ cup water

Why it works: Pepper and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Cut the veal cutlet into medium-sized pieces.
Season the veal with pepper and a little salt.

Assemble and bake

Layer the veal and ham slices alternately in a dish.
Add the forced or sausage meat on top.
Sprinkle the stewed mushrooms and hard-boiled egg yolks over the meat.
Pour in the water.
Bake as you would a Rump-Steak 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.

Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,446 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Meat + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,423 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ham + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,486 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlet: Forms the main meat body of the pie, providing the bulk and savoury flavour of the filling.
Ham: Adds salty, savoury flavour that contrasts with the mild veal.
Forced or sausage meat: Adds richness and fat, keeping the filling moist and well flavoured as it cooks.
Stewed button mushrooms: Adds earthy, savoury flavour and moisture to the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add richness and a creamy texture that thickens slightly as the filling cooks.
Water: Creates steam and moisture in the dish, helping the meat cook gently and stay juicy.

“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.