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Dessert

Potato Pie

A custard pie made with mashed potatoes, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, nutmeg, lemon, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potato 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.

Make the filling

  1. Press the mashed potato through a colander.

  2. Add milk, creamed butter, sugar, beaten egg yolks, nutmeg, salt, mace, lemon juice, and lemon rind. Mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake like a custard pie at 350°F (175°C).

Top and finish

  1. When done, beat the egg whites until stiff, then add sugar and flavoring.

  2. Return the egg white mixture to the oven and bake until it becomes a delicate 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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potato
Forms the body of the filling, giving it a thick, soft, custard-like texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Milk
Provides liquid that sets with the eggs and potato into a creamy custard.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiffness and baked into a light topping that browns in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten egg whites hold their stiff structure.

The step that matters

Baking the custard filling. The filling must be baked until just set. Overbaking causes the egg proteins to tighten and weep liquid, leaving a grainy or watery texture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, lemon. 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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Sweet 114Irish 16Crust 10Lemon 7Southern Sweet 5 See all 98 →

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