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Veal Pates

A baked dish of minced veal and ham mixed with crackers, gravy or milk, butter, egg, and seasonings, served hot or cold.

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

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

  2. Add crushed crackers.

  3. Wet the mixture with gravy or hot milk, mixed with butter and beaten egg.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 garnished 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 meaty body of the filling.
Cold ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a firmer bite to the filling.
Crushed crackers
Absorb liquid and help bind the filling so it holds together.
Gravy or hot milk
Adds moisture so the filling stays tender rather than dry as it bakes.
Beaten egg
Binds the filling and helps it set when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a softer, more flavourful texture.

The step that matters

Wet the mixture with gravy or hot milk, mixed with butter and beaten egg.. The liquid must be evenly distributed through the crushed crackers and meat. Uneven wetting leaves dry pockets or a loose, weeping filling, and the egg needs to be well mixed in so it sets evenly during baking.

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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