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Veal Pates

A baked veal and ham pâté made with crackers, gravy or milk, butter, egg, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Veal Pates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix minced veal and chopped ham in a bowl.

  2. Add crushed crackers and wet the mixture with gravy or a mixture of hot milk, butter, and beaten egg.

  3. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Line pate pans with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pans with the mixture and bake until golden.

  3. Serve hot in the tins or cold on a plate with parsley.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  5. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced veal
Forms the main body of the pâté and gives it a meaty texture.
Ham
Adds savoury flavour and firmness to the meat filling.
Crackers
Absorb liquid and bind the filling so it holds together when baked.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set firm as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the pans with the mixture and bake until golden. Overfilling or underbaking leaves the centre loose and wet, while overbaking dries the meat. The egg sets the filling as it heats, so the pâté is firm enough to slice when cooled.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, milk, butter, egg, 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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