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And Ham Pir

A layered veal and ham pie baked with puff pastry and topped with egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

And Ham Pir

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.

Layer the pie

  1. Cut the veal into nice square pieces and layer them in a pie dish.

  2. Sprinkle a portion of the herbs, spices, lemon peel, and sliced egg yolks over the veal.

  3. Cut the ham very thin and add a layer on top.

  4. Continue layering until the dish is full, ensuring the ham is on top.

  5. Cover the edge of the dish with puff pastry.

  6. Pour in about 4 cups of water.

Top and bake

  1. Cover with crust.

  2. Ornament with leaves.

  3. Brush with egg yolk.

  4. Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours, or longer if the pie is large.

  5. After baking, pour in nearly 4 cups of strong gravy 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlets
Forms the main meat layers, becoming tender and moist as it cooks slowly in the pie.
Boiled ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer meaty texture between the veal layers.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Enrich the filling with richness and a creamy texture that sets gently as it bakes.
Strong gravy
Poured in after baking to add moisture and concentrated meat flavour to the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky crust that seals the pie and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Pouring in the gravy after baking. The gravy is added only after baking through a funnel, so it is not boiled away or overcooked in the oven. Pouring it in before baking would dilute the pastry's crispness and change the filling's texture.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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