Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Peach Pot 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 pastry
Make a paste with 1 cup of water and ½ cup of shortening, adding enough wheat flour to form a nice pastry.
Butter the sides of a small iron pot.
Roll out the paste, reserving some for the top crust.
Line the sides of the pot with the pastry, leaving the bottom uncovered.
Prepare the peaches by peeling and halving them, leaving 6 with the stones.
Cut extra pastry into strips.
Fill the pot
Add the strips with the peaches.
Place the peaches in the pot.
Sprinkle ½ pound of sugar over the peaches.
Grate nutmeg over the peaches.
Add the butter bits.
Pour in 1 cup of water.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt.
Cover the pot with the top crust.
Cut a slit in the middle of the crust.
Cover the pot.
Cook and brown
Cook over gentle heat for 1 hour.
Transfer to a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) to 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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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Wheat + nutmegtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together359 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together342 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Beef + wheattop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together319 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Wheat + peachtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together37 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Wheat flour
- Forms the pastry structure that holds the filling and crust together.
- Shortening
- Adds fat that makes the pastry tender and flaky.
- Peaches
- Provide the fruit filling and its juices, which soften during cooking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the fruit juices thicken and brown.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the filling as it melts.
The step that matters
Cook over gentle heat before transferring to the oven. Gentle heat lets the peaches soften and the pastry cook through without scorching the base. Browning in a hot oven afterward sets the crust colour once the filling is tender.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, wheat, flour, sugar, nutmeg, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, wheat, flour, sugar, nutmeg, butter. 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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