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Veal Pie

A savory pie filled with tender veal and optional pork or ham, topped with crust and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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. Cover the veal with water and add salt in a stewpan, then bring to a boil, skimming off any scum.

  2. Cook until the meat is tender, then transfer to a dish to cool and remove all small bones.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a pie dish and line it with pie crust, then fill halfway with the parboiled veal.

  2. Dot the meat with butter, sprinkle with pepper, and dredge with flour until white.

  3. Add enough of the cooking water to nearly fill the dish.

  4. Roll out the top crust to ½ inch thick, cut a slit in the center, and make small incisions on the sides.

  5. Place the crust on top, trim the edges, and bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,638 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

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

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

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 body of the filling, becoming tender through slow simmering.
All-purpose flour
Dredging the meat thickens the cooking liquid into a light, binding sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling, carrying flavor and moistness.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven, forming a sealed structure.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiling water. Removing the scum that rises during the first boil keeps the broth clear and the flavor clean. Skimming is most important at the start, before the liquid simmers.

“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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