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Veal Pot Pie

A stew of veal, onion, potatoes, and cream, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Cut the veal into small pieces. Remove small bones from the veal. Cover the veal with boiling water. Skim the surface as the water begins to boil.

Make the stew

  1. Add the onion, salt, and pepper for each pound of meat. Simmer until the meat is thoroughly tender.

  2. Soak the potatoes in cold water. Parboil the potatoes for 5 minutes. Add the potatoes to the stew.

  3. Thicken the stew with flour rubbed smooth in cold water. Add more seasoning if desired.

Finish

  1. Stir in the cream or milk and butter just 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat; slow simmering softens its connective tissue until tender.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, giving the stew a soft, hearty texture.
Flour
Thickens the stew as its starch swells in the simmering liquid.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the stew.
Butter or fat
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel, rounding out the flavor.
Onion
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness as it cooks into the broth.

The step that matters

Stir in the cream or milk and butter just before serving. Dairy can curdle or separate if it is kept boiling for long, so it is added last, with the stew off a hard boil.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, potato, flour, cream, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, potato, flour, cream, butter. 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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