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Veal Pot Pie

A savory pot pie with veal, ham, vegetables, and biscuit topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Trim the veal to slightly over 1 pound and cut into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Place the veal and ham in a large saucepan, cover with boiling water, cook briskly for 5 minutes, then simmer for 1 hour or until tender.

  3. After 30 minutes, add the bay leaf, carrot, onion, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ¾ teaspoon pepper.

  4. When the meat is nearly done, measure the liquid; if less than 1½ cups, add boiling water to make up the difference.

  5. Return the liquid to the pan and thicken with 2 tablespoons flour mixed with a little cold water.

Add potatoes and biscuits

  1. Layer sliced potatoes over the meat, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover, and cook for 15 minutes.

  2. Meanwhile, prepare biscuit dough, roll it out, and cut into small, thin biscuits.

  3. Place biscuits on top of the potatoes, cover the saucepan, and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Season the pot pie if needed, remove the bay leaf, and serve on a heated platter garnished with minced parsley.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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, moist simmering.
Ham
Adds savory, salty flavor to the cooking liquid and the finished stew.
Potatoes
Hold their shape as they cook and add starch and body to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy that coats the meat.
Biscuit dough
Forms a soft, baked topping that cooks over the hot filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the liquid. Flour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before stirring into hot liquid; otherwise it clumps. Starch swells and thickens the gravy only once it is hot enough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, ham, parsley, carrot, turnip, potato, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, ham, parsley, carrot, turnip, potato, pepper. 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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