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Veal Pot Pie

A savory pie made with veal ribs, celery, onion, broth, and biscuit dough topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the veal ribs, celery, and onion until tender.

  2. Place the veal and broth in a roaster or baking pan.

  3. Thicken the broth with 2 tablespoons of flour.

Top and bake

  1. Make dough as you would for baking powder biscuits.

  2. Roll the dough to 1 inch thick and cut into 2-inch squares.

  3. Place the squares on top of the veal and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + biscuittop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 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 ribs
Provide the meat and rich flavor that the pot pie is built around.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth gravy that holds the filling together.
Broth
Supplies moisture and savory flavor for the filling and gravy.
Dough for baking powder biscuits
Bakes into a light, tender topping that rises through baking powder's leavening.

The step that matters

Thicken the broth with flour. Flour must be fully mixed into the hot broth so it dissolves and swells with heat; lumps or too little flour leave a thin, uneven gravy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, 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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