Why it works: Egg and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Vegetable Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and stew
Prepare the vegetables, scald and skin the tomatoes, and cut them into pieces not larger than a walnut.
Stew the vegetables in the butter and 1 pint of water until nearly tender.
Add the pepper, salt, and mixed herbs.
Assemble and bake
When cooked, pour the vegetables into a pie-dish, sprinkle in the sago, and add water to make gravy if necessary.
Cut the hard-boiled eggs in quarters and place them on top of the vegetables.
Cover with a crust made from Allinson wholemeal, and bake until it is brown.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Black Pepper | 1 tsp ground (2.3g) | 6 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Water | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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.
-
Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
- Sago
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as its starch swells with heat.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Add a firm, mild, protein-rich layer that holds its shape beneath the crust.
- Mixed herbs
- Add a savoury aroma that flavours the stewed vegetables.
The step that matters
Sprinkling the sago. Dry starch clumps when it meets hot liquid unless it is spread evenly and stirred in. Sago thickens only as its starch swells with heat, so the gravy needs time to thicken before baking.
“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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