Name: Herb Pie
Ingredients: 1 handful of parsley; 1 handful of spinach; 1 pint of milk; 2 lettuce hearts sliced fine; 2 small onions; 3 eggs

Why it works: Spinach and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 427 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Herb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Chop all the vegetables up finely.
Mix the chopped vegetables with a batter made of the milk, meal, and eggs.
Season the mixture with pepper and salt, and mix well.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a buttered pie-dish.
Place bits of butter over the top.
Bake for 1-1/2 hours.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

284Calories

17 gProtein

14 gFat

25 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Spinach	1 cup raw (30g)	7
Lettuce	1 cup shredded (36g)	5
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By T. R. Allinson. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

Spinach + lettucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together427 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Parsley + lettucetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,483 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Parsley + spinachtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,025 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,562 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Spinach + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,336 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set into a firm, sliceable pie.
Milk: Forms the liquid batter that moistens the vegetables and cooks into a custard-like texture.
Spinach: Adds leafy bulk and moisture that softens during baking.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, spinach, milk, lettuce, egg):

Beetrootfits better
Chivefits better
Leekfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, spinach, milk, lettuce, egg. 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.