Skip to main content
Main

Cottage Pie

A baked dish of chopped meat topped with mashed potatoes, cream, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cottage Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Combine the chopped meat with the sauce in a buttered baking dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the meat with mashed potatoes mixed with cream, butter, pepper, and salt.

  2. Ensure the potato layer is at least 2 inches thick over the meat.

  3. Bake until heated through and the potatoes are nicely browned, brushing with melted butter for better browning.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the savoury base of the pie, held in place by the potato topping.
Mashed potatoes
Form the topping that browns in the oven and insulates the meat below.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mashed potato topping.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the potato top brown.
Sauce
Moistens the chopped meat so it heats through without drying out.

The step that matters

Build a thick potato layer. A potato layer at least 2 inches thick insulates the meat so it heats through before the top over-browns. A thin layer can dry out or scorch while the filling stays cold.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sauce, cream, butter, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes