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Dessert

Veal Pot Pie

A savory pie with mashed potato crust, veal, salt pork, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pork 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 ↓

Veal Pot Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Make a crust with mashed potatoes, butter, milk, salt, and enough flour to stiffen it.

  2. Fry the salt pork slices, then add the veal and boil together with a little water until the veal is almost done.

  3. Peel and slice the potatoes thinly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and layer it in a pie dish.

  2. Fill with the veal and pork mixture, then cover with the crust.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.

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. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Pork + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Mashed potatoes
Give the crust body and moisture so it can be rolled out.
Flour
Adds structure, stiffening the potato dough so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crust.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and softness to the crust dough.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the filling as it fries.
Veal
Serves as the main meat, cooked with water until nearly done.

The step that matters

Partly cook the veal before filling the pie. The veal keeps cooking during the long bake. If it is not nearly done before assembly, it can end up dry and tough, or the pie can take uneven cooking.

“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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