Name: Meat Pie
Ingredients: 1 pound cold baked lamb, beef, or veal, cut into small pieces; 4 raw potatoes, sliced thin; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; butter; cold gravy (optional); 1 beaten egg; ½ cup warm water; pie crust

Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble

Layer the meat in a pudding dish.
Add a layer of sliced potatoes, then season with pepper, salt, and butter.
Repeat the layers until the dish is filled.
If available, pour cold gravy on top.
Mix in the beaten egg and warm water.

Bake

Cover with pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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.

Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together520 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold baked lamb, beef, or veal: Forms the savory filling that makes up the body of the pie.
Raw potatoes: Add starchy bulk between the meat layers and soften as the pie bakes.
Beaten egg: Binds the filling and helps set it when heated.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the potato layers.