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Veal or Chicken Pot-pie

A savory 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
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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

Make the filling

  1. In a pot, combine veal and cold water; bring to a boil.

  2. Cook veal until tender, then remove all but 3 or 4 pieces.

  3. Add sliced potatoes and strips of dough to the pot.

  4. Layer in remaining veal and dough, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter.

  5. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the ingredients.

Top and simmer

  1. Roll out the remaining dough to fit the pot, cut holes for steam to escape, and place over the filling.

  2. Cover with a tight lid and simmer gently for 20 to 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long gentle simmering in water.
Soda-biscuit dough
Cooks into soft dumpling-like strips and a top crust that thickens the cooking liquid.
Potatoes
Soften as they simmer, adding body and starch that help thicken the broth.

The step that matters

Keep the lid on while simmering. Lifting the lid releases steam and heat, lowering the cooking temperature and slowing the dough's rise and setting, which can leave the crust doughy.

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.

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