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Veal and Ham Pie

A savory pie filled with veal, ham, mushrooms, shallot, and egg yolks, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal and Ham Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Season the veal and ham with salt and pepper.

  2. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and sauté the mushrooms and shallot until lightly browned.

  3. Add the veloute sauce or stock and boil for 5 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and place the hard-boiled egg yolks in the cavities.

  2. Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body of the filling once cooked through.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor that complements the veal and sauce.
Veloute sauce or stock
Supplies moisture and liquid that keeps the filling tender and saucy during baking.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add richness and a creamy texture where they sit within the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that browns in the oven and seals the pie.

The step that matters

Cover with puff pastry and bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for 1.5 hours. Long baking lets the filling heat through and the sauce thicken, while the pastry must brown fully without drying the meat. Keeping the pastry sealed at the edges traps moisture so the veal stays tender.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, pepper, mushroom, butter, shallot, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, pepper, mushroom, butter, shallot, sauce. 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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