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Savory Pie

A baked pie made with stale bread, tapioca, eggs, tomatoes, onion, sage, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Savory 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

  1. Soak the tapioca in cold water for one hour.

  2. Moisten the stale bread in cold water to make three cups.

  3. Rub in the butter and flour into the moistened bread.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix in the tomatoes, beaten eggs, chopped onion, powdered sage, and salt.

  2. Put the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and pour the soaked tapioca over it.

  3. Place the sliced hard-boiled eggs on top and add a few bits of butter.

  4. Cover with a crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs bind the bread and tomato mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Stale bread
Soaked bread forms the body of the pie, absorbing moisture and giving a soft, pudding-like texture.
Tapioca
Soaked tapioca thickens the moisture in the dish, giving a gel-like, tender texture when baked.
Tomatoes
Stewed tomatoes add moisture and a mild acidity that balances the savory flavors.
Butter
Butter adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the crumb stay tender.

The step that matters

Rubbing in the butter and flour. Working the butter and flour into the moistened bread should be even so the fat coats the crumbs and the flour thickens the mixture rather than forming lumps.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, flour, egg, onion, sage):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, flour, egg, onion, sage. 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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