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Veal Pot-pie

A savory pot pie with veal, crust, and a soft dough topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Veal Pot-pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the veal

  1. Place the veal in a pot with 1 quart of water per 5 pounds of meat over low heat.

  2. Just before boiling, skim the surface and add ½ cup of cold water to help remove scum. Remove all scum.

  3. Boil hard.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, keeping in mind the crust will absorb some seasoning.

  5. Cut the crust into equal pieces without rolling or molding.

  6. Lay the crust pieces on top of the meat to cover it.

  7. Cover the pot tightly.

  8. Let it boil slowly for 1 hour, wrapping a cloth around the lid if it doesn't fit tightly.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, mix flour, butter, and a little salt.

  2. Add enough milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Knead the dough well.

  4. Let it rise until light, about 1 hour in winter or 30 minutes in summer.

  5. If making in summer, add ½ teaspoon of baking soda when kneading the second time.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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
Long gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the breast or brisket meat tender and juicy.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust once mixed with liquid and kneaded.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the crust and makes it tender.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour so it forms a soft, workable dough.

The step that matters

Skim the scum before it boils. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting.

“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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