Skip to main content
Main

Potato Pie

A baked pie of mashed potatoes, meat, ham or bacon, eggs, and crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes with butter and cream.

  2. In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, butcher's meat, ham or bacon, hard boiled eggs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Spread a layer of uncooked potato slices in a pie dish.

  4. Add a layer of the meat mixture, then another layer of potato slices.

  5. Dot with butter and season with onion, ketchup, or pickles.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the beaten eggs over the top and cover with the upper crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the filling, adding starch and a soft, moist body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping the potatoes taste smooth.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mashed potato soft and spreadable.
Eggs
Beaten eggs poured over the top set during baking, binding the layers together.
Butcher's meat
Supplies the savoury main filling and its meaty flavour.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour. Eggs poured over the layers must cook through and set, while the crust browns. Too little baking leaves a runny, undercooked centre; the filling needs enough time for the egg to coagulate fully.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, meat, ham, egg, pepper):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, meat, ham, 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.

More potato pie recipes

Sweet 114Irish 16Crust 10Lemon 7Southern Sweet 5 See all 98 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes