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A Rich Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, sweetbreads, oysters, ham, and eggs, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Rich Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut steaks from the veal and season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and a pinch of ground clove.

  2. Slice the sweetbreads and season them the same way.

  3. Boil the veal gravy with 1 teaspoon of flour.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the dish with puff pastry.

  2. Layer in the meat, yolks of hard-boiled eggs, sweetbreads, and oysters.

  3. Top with thin slices of ham.

  4. Fill the dish with water.

  5. Cover the dish and bake until cooked through.

Finish

  1. After baking, pour in a few spoonfuls of the veal gravy and cream through a funnel.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Oyster + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and savory as it cooks in the pie.
Sweetbreads
Add a rich, creamy texture to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a crumbly, creamy texture to the filling.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor that complements the veal.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the gravy poured in after baking.

The step that matters

Assemble and bake until cooked through. Covering the dish traps steam so the meat cooks through gently; the puff pastry needs enough heat to set and brown, so the oven must be hot enough for the crust while the filling cooks evenly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster, ham, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, nutmeg, egg, oyster, ham, cream. 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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