Name: Meat Pie
Ingredients: cold cooked meat; meat gravy; mashed potatoes; 1 beaten egg; cracker crumbs

Why it works: Meat and potato work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 786 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Meat 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.

Cut cold cooked meat into thin slices or half-inch cubes, removing all gristle and fat except the crisped outside fat.
Place the meat in a baking dish and cover with meat gravy, seasoning to taste.
Spread a layer of mashed potatoes over the meat.
Brush the top with the beaten egg and sprinkle with cracker crumbs.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes until 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.

Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together786 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).