Name: Veal Pie
Ingredients: 1 neck of veal; white pepper; coarse sea salt; mace; grated nutmeg; ½ pint white stock; 5 hard-boiled egg yolks; puff pastry

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Cut the neck of veal into neat steaks.
Season the steaks with white pepper, coarse sea salt, mace, and grated nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

Pack the steaks closely into a dish and add ½ pint of white stock.
Add 5 hard-boiled yolks of eggs if desired.
Cover the edge of the dish with puff pastry and then cover the top with more pastry.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

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.

Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,695 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
White pepper + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,375 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,761 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of veal: Forms the main body of the pie, becoming tender during the long, slow cooking.
Puff pastry: Forms a crisp, golden crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add richness and a firm, crumbly texture to the filling.
White stock: Provides moisture and savoury flavour that keeps the meat from drying out.