Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Plain 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 the veal
Cut the veal into pieces and season with pepper and salt.
Stew the veal in enough water to cover it until nearly done.
Make the gravy
Make a rich gravy by mixing butter and flour, then adding it to the stewing water.
Assemble and bake
Line a deep pie dish with pie crust, add the meat, and pour in the gravy.
Roll out another sheet of pie crust to cover the top.
Cut a three‑inch opening in the center and make a cross with another cut.
Turn back the four corners and decorate with twisted strips of crust.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is golden brown.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,381 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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, which becomes tender through slow stewing in water.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the gravy, giving it a smooth mouthfeel.
- Flour
- Thickens the stewing liquid into a gravy as it cooks.
- Pie crust
- Forms the shell and top that hold the filling and brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Stewing the veal until nearly done. Veal is lean and can turn dry or stringy if overcooked. Stopping at nearly done lets it finish tenderly in the oven with the gravy, keeping the meat moist.
“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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