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Veal Pot Pie

A pot pie made with veal, pastry crust, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and wash it. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Line the sides of a pot with pastry dough.

Cook

  1. Add the veal and some squares of rolled-out pastry.

  2. Add the butter pieces and pour in enough water to cover the meat.

  3. Cover with a sheet of pastry, leaving an opening in the center.

  4. Place the lid on the pot and cook over moderate heat until the meat is done.

Assemble and serve

  1. Transfer the soft crust to a dish, place the meat on top, and cover with the hard crust, brown side up.

  2. Serve the gravy in a separate dish.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 that becomes tender during slow cooking in the pot.
All-purpose flour
Forms the pastry dough that lines the pot and creates the crust structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and moistens the meat and pastry.
Water
Covers the meat and turns the juices and fat into a gravy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the meat until done under the lid. Veal is lean and can turn dry or tough if overcooked, while undercooked meat stays firm. Gentle, covered heat with enough liquid helps the connective tissue soften evenly.

“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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