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Veal Pot-pie

A stew of veal, onions, potatoes, and cream topped with biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Cut the veal into small pieces.

  2. Place a plate in the bottom of a stew pan to prevent burning.

  3. Add the veal, water, and onion to the pan.

  4. Cook slowly for about 2 hours.

  5. Add salt, cayenne pepper, and diced potatoes.

  6. Cook for an additional 30 minutes.

  7. Melt the butter. Add the flour. Pour in the cream. Stir constantly for 5 minutes.

  8. Add the mixture to the stew.

Make the biscuits and serve

  1. Prepare biscuits by mixing flour, salt, baking powder, butter, lard, and milk or water.

  2. Pour the stew over the biscuits 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + biscuittop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together428 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together889 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow cooking.
Flour
Thickens the cream and butter mixture into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the sauce and biscuit dough.
Baking powder
Produces gas that makes the biscuits rise and turn light.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk to the stew as they cook.

The step that matters

Stir the flour mixture constantly. Flour added to hot butter and cream can clump or scorch on the bottom if not stirred. Constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth and prevents burning, and it cooks off the raw starch taste of the flour.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, veal, onion, cream, butter, flour, biscuit):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, veal, onion, cream, butter, flour, biscuit. 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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