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Veal Pot Pie

A stew of veal in a pastry crust, cooked in a pot.

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.

Assemble and cook

  1. Line the sides of a pot with the paste made from flour and water.

  2. Add the veal and some squares of rolled-out paste.

  3. Dot with butter pieces and pour in enough water to cover the meat.

  4. Cover with a sheet of paste, leaving an opening in the center.

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

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
Is the main protein; cooking it slowly in water makes it tender and produces a flavorful gravy.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste that lines the pot and covers the meat, giving a structural crust that holds the dish together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, enriching the meat and gravy and helping the top crust brown.

The step that matters

Cover with the paste and leave the center open. The opening in the top crust lets steam escape while the meat cooks, so the crust does not turn soggy or burst. Keeping the lid on the pot traps moisture for gentle, even cooking of the meat.

“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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