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Veal Pot-pie

A savory pie made with veal, potatoes, and soda biscuit dough, simmered in a pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into 12 pieces and place them in a pot with 1 quart of cold water.

  2. Make a quart of soda biscuit dough.

  3. Take two-thirds of the dough, roll it out to ¼ inch thick, and cut into strips 1 inch wide and 3 inches long.

  4. Pare and slice the potatoes.

Cook and assemble

  1. Boil the veal until tender, then remove all but 3 or 4 pieces.

  2. Add 2 handfuls of potatoes and several strips of dough to the pot.

  3. Layer in the remaining pieces of veal and dough, seasoning with salt, pepper, and a little butter.

  4. Cover with boiling water.

  5. Roll out the remaining dough to fit the size of the pot, cut several holes for steam to escape, and place it over the filling.

  6. Cover with a tight lid and boil gently for 20 to 30 minutes without uncovering.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Biscuit + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,009 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat and rich flavour that the broth and crust surround.
Soda biscuit dough
Forms the strips and top crust that cook into tender, bready layers.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the cooking liquid and makes the filling hearty.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the seasoned filling.

The step that matters

Cover with a tight lid and boil gently. A tight lid traps steam so the dough cooks through and the meat stays moist. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and break up the dough, so keep the pot at a gentle simmer.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, biscuit, pepper, 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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