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Baked Veal or Chicken Pot Pie

A pot pie made with veal or chicken, sliced potatoes, butter, and pie crust, cooked in hot water and baked.

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 ↓

Baked Veal or Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and layer

  1. Line the sides of a small dinner pot with pie crust.

  2. Layer the veal or chicken and sliced potatoes in the pot, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. Fill the pot with hot water to cook the meat and create gravy.

  4. Cover the pot with pie crust.

  5. Cut a small slit in the center of the crust.

Cook

  1. Cook slowly on the stove for 2 hours.

  2. Uncover the pot and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove the top crust.

  4. Thicken the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat and side crust on a platter.

  2. Place the top crust over all.

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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Veal + potatotop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together343 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal or chicken
Provides the main protein, which firms as it cooks and gives the pie its substance.
Sliced potatoes
Starch that softens during slow cooking and adds body to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel in the meat and gravy.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and bakes to a golden, crisp edge.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy. Gravy thickens when starch granules absorb liquid and swell with heat. Cooking it long enough at a gentle simmer gives a smooth body instead of a thin, watery sauce.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Onionfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, 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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