Skip to main content
Main

Pork Pot-pie

A savory pork pot pie made with pork, potatoes, and a stiff batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Pork Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Scald the pork pieces with hot water to remove the briny taste.

  2. Place the pork in a kettle and cover with cold water.

  3. Cover and boil for 1 hour, then season with pepper.

Add the potatoes and dumplings

  1. Add the quartered potatoes and bring to a boil again.

  2. In a bowl, mix the buttermilk, beaten eggs, salt, and baking soda.

  3. Add enough flour to make a very stiff batter.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the boiling broth.

  5. Cover closely and cook for 40 minutes.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Salt pork
Renders fat and flavours the broth that the dumplings and potatoes cook in.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, thickening the broth and making the dish filling.
Sour buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the batter rises and turns tender.
Eggs
Bind the batter so the dumplings hold their shape while cooking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, lightening the dumplings.
Flour
Forms the structure of the stiff batter, so the dumplings hold together in the broth.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the boiling broth. The batter must be stiff enough to hold its shape. A loose batter spreads and dissolves in the liquid, and the broth must be boiling so the dumplings set quickly on contact.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, buttermilk, egg, flour):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, buttermilk, egg, flour. 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 CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes