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Veal Pot-pie

A savory pie made with veal, potatoes, and a flour-based dough, simmered in broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Veal Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Wipe the veal with a damp towel and place it in a pot with cold water, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil, skimming off any scum, then cover and simmer for 2 hours.

Add the potatoes and dumplings

  1. Peel the potatoes and soak them in cold water.

  2. After 2 hours, add the potatoes to the pot and bring to a boil.

  3. In a bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder, then mix with enough milk or water to form a soft dough.

  4. Drop the dough into the pot as a flat piece or by the tablespoonful, wetting the spoon in the broth.

  5. Cover and boil for 20 minutes, then serve hot.

Finish the gravy

  1. For a richer gravy, stir in the yolks of 2 raw eggs before serving.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Clove + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 breast
Provides the meat and, as it simmers, the flavorful broth that becomes the gravy.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough, which sets and holds its shape as it cooks in the broth.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the dumplings puff and turn light and tender.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the broth and making the dish more filling.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsified fat, giving the gravy a smoother, thicker texture.

The step that matters

Drop the dough into a gently boiling pot. Dough needs to cook through in simmering liquid; if the broth is too vigorous, dumplings can break apart, and if it is too weak they can turn dense and gummy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, potato, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, potato, flour, milk, egg. 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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