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Dessert

White Potato Pie

A sweet pie made with mashed potatoes, milk, eggs, sugar, lemon, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

White Potato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine mashed potatoes, milk, beaten egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest.

  3. Pour the mixture into a deep pie dish lined with pastry.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until light.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the meringue over the pie and return it to the oven for a few moments to brown.

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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Mashed potatoes
Thickens the filling and gives it a smooth, dense body.
Egg yolks
Set during baking to give the filling structure and richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to form the airy, stable meringue topping.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff enough to hold air; under-whipped whites deflate and weep, while the sugar added gradually helps the foam stay glossy and stable.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, lemon):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, lemon. 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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