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Veal Pie

A baked pie filled with tender veal, butter, and flour, topped with a crust and baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,930 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Veal Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the veal

  1. Combine veal and hot water in a stew-pan until the water covers the meat.

  2. Add salt and bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender.

  4. Transfer the meat to a dish to cool.

  5. Remove all small bones.

Assemble the pie

  1. Grease a tin or earthen basin with butter.

  2. Line the basin with pie paste.

  3. Fill the basin halfway with the parboiled meat.

  4. Dot the meat with butter pieces the size of a hickory nut.

  5. Sprinkle with pepper.

  6. Dredge the meat with flour until white.

  7. Pour in some of the cooking water until nearly full.

Cover and bake

  1. Roll out the top crust to ½ inch thickness.

  2. Cut a slit in the center of the crust.

  3. Make small incisions on either side of the slit.

  4. Place the crust on top of the filling.

  5. Trim the edges of the crust.

  6. Bake for 1 hour in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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 + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together213 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Veal
Provides the main meat filling, which becomes tender through simmering.
Wheat flour
Dredging coats the meat and helps thicken the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat as it melts during baking.
Pie paste
Forms the structure that holds the filling and crisps as it bakes.

The step that matters

Skimming the boil. Skimming off scum while the water comes to a boil keeps the cooking liquid clear and the meat's flavor clean, which matters because that liquid is later poured into the pie.

“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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