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Raised Pies

A pastry pie filled with veal, ham, hard‑boiled eggs, parsley, pepper, and salt, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Raised Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the crust

  1. Grease an oval pie mold with clarified butter.

  2. In a bowl, rub ½ pound of butter into 1 pound of flour.

  3. Add 4 egg yolks and enough water to make a stiff paste.

  4. Roll out the paste and cut into two strips half an inch thick.

  5. Line the inside of the mold with the strips, sealing the ends with egg yolk.

  6. Roll out a piece for the bottom and secure it to prevent leakage.

Fill and bake

  1. Layer slices of veal and ham in the mold, sprinkling with parsley, pepper, and salt.

  2. Slice the hard-boiled eggs into rings and layer them alternately with the meat.

  3. Cover the pie with remaining paste and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Remove from the mold and pour in ½ pint of well-seasoned gravy before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the stiff paste that gives the pie crust its structure.
Fresh butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crust.
Egg yolks
Bind the paste and seal the crust edges, adding richness and color.
Hard-boiled eggs
Layered with the meat to add body and a firm, sliced texture.
Strong gravy
Poured in after baking to add moisture and savory flavor to the pie.

The step that matters

Sealing the crust before filling. Sealing the ends with egg yolk and securing the base keeps the gravy and meat juices from leaking out during the long bake.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, veal, ham, pepper. 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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