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Pot Pie of Veal Oe Beef

A pot pie made with veal or beef, pork, potatoes, pepper, salt, and a rich paste crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Pot Pie of Veal Oe Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Fry the pork in a saucepan until browned, then remove the scraps.

  2. Add the meat and brown it.

  3. Add the sliced raw potatoes, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Cover with water.

  5. Let it cook for one hour.

Finish

  1. Top with a rich paste crust before serving.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Fried first to render fat that browns the meat and adds savory flavor.
Meat (veal or beef)
Main protein; browning it first develops rich, savory flavor in the filling.
Raw potatoes
Starch that thickens the filling as it cooks and adds body to the pie.

The step that matters

Browning the meat. Searing the meat until well browned builds deep savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Crowding the pan or stopping early leaves the filling pale and bland.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Mustardfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, meat, 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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