Skip to main content

Zippy Shepherd's Pie

"Gather the family round with this quick and easy shepherd's pie recipe. The meat mixture can be made ahead and frozen. You can also substitute instant potatoes for the real thing if you're in a hurry. I especially love to use white cheddar in this recipe!"

Jump to recipe ↓
Zippy Shepherd's Pie

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,058 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Zippy Shepherd's Pie

6 servings
Prep20 min
Cook25 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,092 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

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, canola oil, beef, onion, pepper, garlic, ketchup):

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, canola oil, beef, onion, pepper, garlic, ketchup. 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).