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Veal Pot-pie

A savory pie made by simmering veal with a crust of flour, butter, and milk.

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

Prepare the veal

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

  2. Heat over low until just before boiling.

  3. Skim the surface and turn the meat to remove scum.

  4. Add a teacup of cold water.

  5. Boil hard, seasoning with pepper and salt.

Top with crust and simmer

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

  2. Lay the crust on top of the meat to cover it.

  3. Cover the pot tightly.

  4. Boil slowly for 1 hour, ensuring it continues to boil.

Make the crust

  1. Mix flour, butter, and a little salt.

  2. Add milk to form a soft dough.

  3. Knead well.

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

  5. Add baking soda during the second knead in summer.

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 its connective tissue, making the meat tender.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the crust its structure and body.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dough and softens its texture.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour into a soft, workable dough.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift and lighten the dough when used in summer.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 1 hour, ensuring it continues to boil. A steady simmer for the full hour breaks down the veal's connective tissue into tender meat. If the liquid stops boiling, the meat cooks unevenly and can stay tough.

“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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