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Potato Pie

A savory pie of sliced cold meat, onions, gravy, butter, and mashed potatoes baked in a tin lid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Prepare a perforated tin lid with handles to fit a pie dish.

  2. Wash the lid in boiling soda and water before first use.

Assemble

  1. Cut the cold meat into neat slices and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Add the minced onions, gravy (or water), and butter or dripping to the meat.

  3. Cover with the tin lid and pile the mashed potatoes on top until full.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) for one hour.

  2. Serve the pie in the baking dish, wrapped in a hot napkin.

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. Onion + potatotop 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. Pepper + potatotop 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. Pepper + oniontop 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

Cold meat
Forms the savoury filling that the pie is built around.
Onions
Add aroma and a mild sweetness as they soften in the pan juices.
Butter or beef dripping
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the filling.
Gravy or water
Supplies moisture so the filling stays juicy while baking.
Cold boiled potatoes
Form a soft, browning crust on top of the pie.

The step that matters

Piling the mashed potatoes on top. Potatoes that are too wet or thin can sink into the filling or steam rather than brown, so they should be mashed stiff with milk and piled high to seal the meat below.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter, potato, 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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