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Potato Turnovers

A baked pastry filled with seasoned meat and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Potato Turnovers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  2. Mix in the milk, beaten egg, and enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Roll the dough out into ovals.

Fill and bake

  1. Place some mixed and seasoned meat on one half of each oval.

  2. Fold the dough over the filling and pinch the edges to seal.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  2. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the soft, starchy bulk that makes the filling moist and tender.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure so it can be rolled and sealed around the filling.
Beaten egg
Binds the dough and helps it brown in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough.
Mixed and seasoned meat
Supplies the savory filling that the dough encloses.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. If the edges are not sealed firmly, the filling can leak out during baking and the turnover may open or dry out. A tight seal keeps the juices and moisture inside.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, meat):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, meat. 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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