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Hot Pie , with Chives

A savory hot pie made with veal, suet, chives, and a ragout of lamb sweetbreads, mushrooms, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 300 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Hot Pie , with Chives

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 paste and force-meat

  1. Prepare a force-meat by mixing veal, suet, egg, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Make short paste with butter and flour; let it rest.

  3. Line a buttered pâté-chaud mold with the paste.

  4. Add chives to the force-meat and fill the mold, shaping it into a dome.

Bake and fill

  1. Cover with a flat of paste, pinch the edges, and egg wash the top.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove from the mold and create an opening on top.

  4. Carefully remove two-thirds of the force-meat to create a hollow.

  5. Fill the hollow with a ragout of lamb sweetbreads, mushrooms, and brown sauce.

  6. Cover the pie and serve.

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 + chivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  3. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chive + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the force-meat and glaze the top for an even golden colour.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the short paste, making it tender and flaky.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten structure of the short paste that holds the pie together.
Veal kidney suet
Adds fat to the force-meat, keeping it moist and juicy as it bakes.
Lean veal
Provides the main meat body of the force-meat, setting firm when baked.

The step that matters

Carefully remove two-thirds of the force-meat to create a hollow. The baked force-meat is soft and fragile, so removing it gently keeps the walls intact. A thin, sturdy shell is needed to hold the hot ragout without cracking or leaking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, butter, flour, chive, lamb, mushroom):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, flour, chive, lamb, mushroom. 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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