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Vegetable Pie

A savory pie filled with a mixture of beans, carrots, turnips, artichokes, lettuces, mushrooms, celery, parsley, peas, onions, spinach, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and artichoke match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 140 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Scald the Windsor beans and cut them into small pieces.

  2. Chop the young carrots, turnips, artichoke bottoms, lettuces, mushrooms, celery, and parsley.

  3. Add green peas and optionally onions and spinach.

  4. Partially stew the vegetables in gravy and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Trim the edges of a pie dish with pastry.

  2. Place the vegetables in the dish and pour the gravy over them.

  3. Cover with pastry and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Turnip + artichoketop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together140 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Artichoke + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  4. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Turnip + lettucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Windsor beans
Provide the main body and bulk of the filling, holding their shape after scalding.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour, keeping the vegetables tender during the partial stew.
Pastry for pie crust
Forms the enclosing crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the filling.
Green peas
Add sweetness and soft texture to the mixed vegetable filling.

The step that matters

Partially stewing the vegetables in gravy. Stewing softens the vegetables and lets them absorb seasoning before baking. Under-stewing can leave firm vegetables that stay raw inside the crust, while over-stewing turns them mushy and makes the filling watery.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, artichoke, lettuce, mushroom, celery, parsley):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, artichoke, lettuce, mushroom, celery, parsley. 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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