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Veal Pot-pie

A savory pie made with veal, crust, and a soft dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Place the veal in a pot with 1 quart of water for every 5 pounds of meat, then heat over a slow fire.

  2. Just before boiling, skim the surface.

  3. Add ½ cup of cold water.

  4. Turn the meat to help scum rise.

  5. Remove all scum.

Season and cover

  1. Boil hard and season with salt and pepper, noting that the crust will absorb some seasoning.

  2. Cut the crust into equal pieces without rolling or molding.

  3. Lay the crust pieces on top of the meat to cover it.

  4. Cover the pot tightly.

  5. Let it boil slowly for 1 hour.

  6. If the lid doesn't fit tightly, wrap a cloth around it to prevent steam from escaping.

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour, butter, and a little salt, then add enough milk to form a soft dough.

  2. Knead well and let rise until light, about 1 hour in winter or 30 minutes in summer.

  3. Knead again and cut the dough when ready.

  4. Optionally, add ½ teaspoon baking soda in summer.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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, which becomes tender through slow, moist boiling.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crust once mixed into a dough.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crust rich and tender.
Milk
Provides the moisture that brings the flour and butter into a soft dough.
Baking soda
Optional leavening that helps the summer dough rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Keep the pot tightly covered while it boils. A tight lid traps steam so the meat simmers in its own moisture. If steam escapes, the liquid reduces and the meat can dry out and toughen.

“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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