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Veal Pot Pie

A pot pie made with veal, flour paste 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 the veal

  1. Cut the veal into pieces and wash it.

  2. Season the veal with salt and pepper.

Build the pot

  1. Line the sides of a pot with rolled out paste.

  2. Add the veal to the pot.

  3. Add some squares of rolled out paste to the pot.

  4. Cut the butter into pieces and roll the butter pieces in flour.

  5. Add the butter and flour mixture to the pot.

  6. Pour in enough water to cover the veal.

  7. Lay a sheet of paste on top, leaving an opening in the center.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover the pot with a lid and cook over moderate heat until the meat is done.

  2. Place the soft crust on a dish.

  3. Add the meat.

  4. Top with the hard crust, brown side up.

  5. 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 meat that becomes tender as it cooks slowly in the covered pot.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste crust and, with butter, thickens the cooking liquid into gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and keeping the crust tender.

The step that matters

Cook over moderate heat until the meat is done. Moderate heat lets connective tissue in the veal break down slowly, keeping the meat tender, while a lid traps moisture so the liquid does not evaporate too quickly.

“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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