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Potato Pie

A baked dish of sliced potatoes and onions with a wholemeal crust, seasoned with herbs, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Slice the potatoes and onions.

  2. Stew them with a little water until nearly done.

  3. Transfer to a pie dish and season with herbs, pepper, and salt.

  4. Add soaked tapioca and a small amount of butter or olive oil.

Make the crust and bake

  1. For the crust, mix one pound of wholemeal flour with ¼ pound of butter or a proportionate amount of olive oil, using milk instead of water.

  2. Cover with wholemeal crust and bake at 400°F (200°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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the filling and soften into a tender, starchy body.
Soaked tapioca
Thickens the cooking juices so the filling sets rather than running out.
Wholemeal flour
Forms the crust structure that holds the pie together while it bakes.
Butter or olive oil
Adds fat for richness and helps the crust stay tender.
Milk
Replaces water in the crust, adding richness and promoting gentle browning.

The step that matters

Stew the potatoes and onions until nearly done. Potatoes baked raw inside a pie stay firm and hard in the centre. Cooking them partly beforehand softens the starch so the filling becomes tender during the bake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pepper, butter, flour, milk):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, flour, milk. 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.

More potato pie recipes

Sweet 114Irish 16Crust 10Lemon 7Southern Sweet 5 See all 98 →

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