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Shepherd's Pie Mexicana

"Great shepherd's pie with a kick. It's prepared with a blend of Mexican spices. Adjust seasonings according to your personal taste. You can also spice up the mashed potatoes if you like."

This recipe’s ingredient list has no crust or pastry, so it bakes more like a fruit dish than a pastry pie.

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,030 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

The recipe

1 casserole
Prep15 min
Cook50 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (204°C). Put the potatoes in a pot, cover with water, bring to a boil and cook 15 minutes until tender. Drain well.

  2. Mash the potatoes with the butter, milk, garlic powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt until smooth. Set aside.

  3. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onions and cook 5 minutes until soft.

  4. Stir in the minced garlic and cook 1 minute until fragrant.

  5. Add the ground beef and cook, breaking it up, 8 minutes until browned and it reaches 160°F (71°C) inside. Drain off excess fat.

  6. Stir in the taco seasoning, spicy seasoned salt and a splash of water. Simmer 3 minutes until slightly thickened.

  7. Add the frozen peas and frozen corn and cook 3 minutes, stirring, until heated through.

  8. Spread the meat and vegetable mixture in a 2-quart casserole dish. Spread the mashed potatoes evenly over the top.

  9. Bake 20 minutes until the potato topping is golden and the filling bubbles at the edges. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Potato + oniontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,019 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Potato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,512 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, milk, garlic, olive, onion, beef):

  1. Peanutbetter flavor fit
  2. Beansabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Soybeanabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, milk, garlic, olive, onion, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).