Name: Savoury Pie
Ingredients: Butter for greasing; 1 cup chopped mushrooms; 2 ounces tapioca, soaked in ½ cup water for 10 minutes; 1 moderate-sized onion, chopped; 2-3 sage leaves, chopped; 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; Salt and pepper to taste; 2 ounces butter, cut into small pieces; Pastry for covering the pie

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Savoury Pie

Ingredients

Butter for greasing
1 cup chopped mushrooms
2 ounces tapioca, soaked in ½ cup water for 10 minutes
1 moderate-sized onion, chopped
2-3 sage leaves, chopped
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
2 ounces butter, cut into small pieces
Pastry for covering the pie

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

Grease a pie dish thickly with butter.

Assemble the pie

Cover the bottom with a layer of chopped mushrooms.
Add the soaked tapioca, followed by the chopped onion and sage leaves.
Layer the chopped hard-boiled eggs on top and season with salt and pepper.
Dot the surface with small pieces of butter.
Cover the dish with pastry.

Bake

Bake in a well-heated oven at 400°F (200°C) until the pastry is done.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,626 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,580 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tapioca: Soaked tapioca absorbs liquid and thickens the filling as it bakes.
Eggs: Hard-boiled eggs add body and richness to the filling.
Mushrooms: Mushrooms contribute moisture and earthy savoury flavour to the filling.
Butter: Butter dotted on top adds richness and helps the surface brown.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, sage, egg, pepper):

Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, sage, egg, 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.