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Veal Pie with Forcemeat

A savory pie made with minced veal, bacon, ham, and forcemeat layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,264 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pie with Forcemeat

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the rind, gristle, bone, and brown parts from the bacon.

  2. Mince the veal and any trimmings very finely.

  3. Mix the minced veal and bacon with spiced salt until it forms a stiff paste.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a plain oval pie mold with short paste.

  2. Layer one-fourth of the forcemeat at the bottom of the mold.

  3. Add a layer of rashers of ham, then another layer of forcemeat, followed by pieces of veal.

  4. Sprinkle with spiced salt, then add another layer of forcemeat, rashers of ham, and forcemeat again.

  5. Cover the surface with three rashers of fat bacon and a bay leaf.

  6. Cover with paste and bake for 2 hours at 350°F (175°C), covering the top with buttered paper.

  7. Check doneness with a skewer.

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

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

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the lean veal moist as it cooks.
Veal
Forms the main meat body of the filling, setting firm when cooked.
Spiced salt
Seasons the forcemeat and helps the minced meat bind into a stiff paste.
Short paste
Forms the sealed crust that holds the filling and bakes to a crisp shell.

The step that matters

Mixing the forcemeat to a stiff paste. Salt draws out proteins from minced meat, which makes it bind so the layers hold together when sliced. Mince finely and mix until tacky, so the filling sets evenly rather than crumbling or drying in the oven.

“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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