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Favorite Meat Pie

A savory pie of sliced roast meat topped with mashed potatoes and stewed tomatoes, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Favorite Meat 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble the pie

  1. In a meat pie dish, layer the sliced roast meat, wet it with gravy, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. If desired, sprinkle chopped onion over the meat.

  3. Pour stewed tomatoes over the meat and add more pepper.

  4. Top with a thick layer of mashed potatoes.

Bake

  1. Bake until the top is light brown.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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

Roast meat
Forms the main filling and provides savory, meaty flavor.
Gravy
Adds moisture so the meat stays juicy during baking.
Stewed tomatoes
Contributes acidity and moisture to the filling.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a topping that browns in the oven and seals in moisture.

The step that matters

Top with a thick layer of mashed potatoes. A thick, even layer keeps the filling covered so it stays moist, and it gives the topping enough body to brown rather than dry out.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, tomato, potato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Okrafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, tomato, potato. 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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