Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓
Pork Pie
Ingredients
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 the filling
Cook the pork in water until tender.
Add the potatoes and cook until they are tender.
Prepare a gravy and reserve some for later.
Assemble and bake
Make a short crust pastry similar to pie crust, adding a little baking powder.
Line a small bread pan with the crust.
Add the cooked meat and gravy to the pan.
Cover with the upper crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.
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.
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Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork
- Forms the main meat filling, becoming tender through slow cooking in water.
- Potatoes
- Adds body and starch that thicken the filling and make it more substantial.
- Gravy
- Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the filling does not dry out in the oven.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas as it heats, helping the crust rise and turn lighter.
The step that matters
Cook the filling fully before assembling. The pork and potatoes must be cooked through before they go into the crust, because the oven mainly browns the pastry and will not fully cook raw meat.
“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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