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Veal Pot Pie, Country Style

A savory pot pie made with stewed veal, milk, and a dough topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie, Country Style

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the stew

  1. Stew the veal in enough water to cover for 1 hour with the onion, salt pork, white pepper, and salt.

  2. Add the milk and thicken the mixture to the consistency of cream.

  3. Transfer the stew to a deep oven-safe pan.

Make and bake the topping

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt, then add water to form a soft dough.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the dough over the top of the stew.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

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 + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

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

  3. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

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

  4. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

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

  5. Pork + coffeetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together220 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long stew and forms the body of the pie.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the stew, helping it thicken to a smooth consistency.
Flour
Thickens the stew and, with baking powder and water, forms the dough that sets into the topping.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the spoonfuls rise and turn light as they bake.

The step that matters

Thicken the stew to the consistency of cream. Flour and milk must thicken the liquid enough before the topping goes on; a thin stew will run under the dough and make the base soggy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, milk, onion, pork, flour, coffee):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, milk, onion, pork, flour, coffee. 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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