Name: Veal Pie
Ingredients: 3 pounds lean veal; coarse sea salt; black pepper; raw potatoes, sliced thin; sliced tomatoes; flour; baking powder; butter; milk

Why it works: Potato and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal 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.

Boil the veal until thoroughly cooked. Remove bones and fat.
Season the veal with coarse sea salt and black pepper. Make a nice gravy.
In an earthen dish, layer the veal, then a layer of raw sliced potatoes, followed by sliced tomatoes, and top with another layer of veal.
Prepare a soft crust by mixing flour, baking powder, butter, and milk until stiff. Cover the pie with this crust.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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.

Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, potato, flour, butter, milk):

Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Carrotfits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, potato, flour, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.