Skip to main content
Main

Veal Pot-pie

A savory pie with veal and a shortcrust-like dough, steamed until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Boil the veal until tender.

  2. Remove some of the cooking liquid, leaving enough to prevent the meat from drying out.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Rub in the shortening, then add milk until the mixture is thin enough to roll out.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut it into oblong pieces.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the dough over the meat, ensuring it does not touch the liquid.

  2. Cover tightly and steam for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve when done.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Veal + milktop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,013 recipes

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

  3. Veal + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,886 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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, which becomes tender through long boiling.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once combined with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, lightening the dough so it rises.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps it from becoming tough.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the dough becomes rollable and moist.

The step that matters

Keeping the dough off the cooking liquid. If the dough sits in the liquid it becomes soggy and heavy instead of steaming. Keeping it above the liquid lets the steam cook and lighten the dough while the meat stays moist.

“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.

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes