Name: Beef and Veal Pie
Ingredients: 1 quart rare cold bits of beef and veal; 1 slice of salt pork; 1 small onion; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 cup meat stock; Butter (about the size of an egg); Soda crust or puff paste

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Beef and 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 filling

Mince the beef, veal, salt pork, and onion together.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add the meat stock and mix well.

Assemble and bake

Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.
Add bits of butter on top.
Cover with soda crust or puff paste.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.
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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef and veal: Provide the meat that forms the body and savoury flavour of the pie.
Meat stock: Adds moisture and savoury depth to the filling so it does not dry out while baking.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savoury richness to the filling.
Butter: Adds fat and richness that melts into the filling and crust during baking.
Soda crust or puff paste: Forms the top crust that seals in the filling and browns in the oven.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, pork, pepper, meat, butter, egg):

Potatobetter flavor fit
Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pork, pepper, meat, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.