Skip to main content
Main

Veal or Chicken Pot-pie

A pot pie made with veal or chicken, potatoes, soda biscuit dough, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 or Chicken Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Combine veal and cold water in a pot; boil until tender.

  2. Remove all but 3-4 pieces of veal.

Assemble and simmer

  1. Add 2 handfuls of potatoes and several strips of dough.

  2. Layer in remaining veal and dough.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  4. Add boiling water to cover the ingredients.

  5. Roll out remaining dough to fit the pot.

  6. Cut holes for steam in the dough.

  7. Place the dough over the filling.

  8. Cover tightly.

  9. Boil gently for 20-30 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
Supplies the meat that becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Potatoes
Starch that softens and slightly thickens the cooking liquid.
Soda-biscuit dough
Forms a soft, dumpling-like crust that absorbs steam and cooking liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder, smoother flavour.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and boil gently without uncovering. The trapped steam cooks the dough from above and keeps the filling at a steady temperature. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and cools the pot, which can leave the dough gummy or the meat unevenly cooked.

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.

You might also like

Potato BiscuitPotato Biscuit32 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes