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Pork Pot-pie

A pork and potato stew thickened with a stiff batter of buttermilk, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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.

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

Make the dumplings and cook

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

  2. Gradually add flour to make a very stiff batter.

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

  4. 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and help the dumplings hold together while cooking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, lightening the dumplings.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds a tangy flavor to the batter.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch structure that gives the dumplings their body.
Potatoes
Thicken the broth slightly as they cook and add starchy body to the pot.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the boiling broth. The batter must be very stiff so the dumplings hold their shape rather than dissolving into the broth. Keeping the broth boiling as they go in helps them set quickly on the outside.

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.

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