Skip to main content
Main

Meat Pie

A meat pie topped with mashed potatoes, beaten egg, and cracker crumbs, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Remove all gristle and fat from the cold meat and cut it into thin slices.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the meat in a pudding dish and cover it with gravy or tomato sauce.

  2. Spread leftover mashed potatoes over the meat.

  3. Cover with a beaten egg and sprinkle cracker crumbs on top.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for twenty minutes.

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. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the pie and supplies its savory flavor.
Gravy or tomato sauce
Adds moisture so the meat stays juicy rather than drying in the oven.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft topping that bakes into a tender, mildly browned crust over the meat.
Beaten egg
Binds the topping together and helps it set into a firm layer when baked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, tomato, potato, egg, parsley, sage, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, tomato, potato, egg, parsley, sage, pepper. 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 meat pie recipes

Mince Filling 11Mince 10Cold 7French 7Crust 5Pastry 5 See all 92 →

You might also like

Meatless Tomato SoupMeatless Tomato Soup23 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes