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Vegetable Pot Pie

A baked pie of lima beans, tomatoes, and cornmeal dumpling topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Vegetable Pot 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Soak and boil the lima beans until tender.

  2. Add baking soda to the beans.

  3. Mix the tomatoes, dripping, sugar, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a pot.

Make the batter

  1. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, Wesson oil, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

  2. Stir in milk and beaten egg until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the vegetable mixture into a baking dish and top with the dumpling batter.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

  1. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Lima beans + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Lima beans + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together468 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Lima beans
Provide the bulk and body of the vegetable filling, becoming tender after soaking and boiling.
Baking soda
Added to the beans to raise their alkalinity, which helps them soften.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set its structure as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the dumpling topping rises and lightens.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dumpling batter as it sets in the oven.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and moisture to the vegetable filling beneath the batter.

The step that matters

Stir the batter until just smooth. Overmixing the flour and liquid develops gluten, which can make the dumpling topping tough and dense rather than light.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sugar, pepper, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sugar, pepper, flour, milk, 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.

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