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Vegetable Pie

A pie made with carrots, onions, turnip, potato, peas, tomatoes and short pastry, baked with stock or brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Vegetable 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. Parboil the vegetables, except the tomatoes.

  2. Prepare and slice the vegetables very thinly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the vegetables and layer them with seasoning and tapioca in a pie dish.

  2. Pour in the stock or sauce and cover with the pastry.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 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

Short pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Sago or tapioca
Thickens the cooking liquid so the filling sets rather than running out.
Brown sauce
Adds savoury depth and moisture to the filling.
Potato
Adds starch and body, helping the filling hold together when sliced.

The step that matters

Slicing the vegetables thinly. Thin, even slices cook through within the set baking time and release starch evenly, so the filling becomes tender and the thickener sets well.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, turnip, potato, sauce, parsley, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, turnip, potato, sauce, parsley, 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.

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