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Veal Pot Pie

A savory pie with veal, potatoes, and biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 889 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the veal in water until tender.

  2. Add the sliced potatoes and boil until done.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep pan.

  4. Stir in the flour to thicken the gravy.

Bake

  1. Cover with biscuit dough and bake at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + biscuittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Veal + potatotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

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

  5. Veal + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,886 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 main meat, which becomes tender when simmered in water.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling as they cook through.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that holds the filling together.
Biscuit dough
Forms a crust that browns in the oven as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour to thicken the gravy. Flour must be evenly distributed in the hot liquid so it swells and thickens smoothly; stirring well prevents lumps and a thin, uneven gravy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, 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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