Name: Pot Pie
Ingredients: 2-3 pounds of beef; potatoes; turnips; 1 head of cabbage; pepper; salt; apple sauce

Why it works: Turnip and cabbage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Pot Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the beef in water until nearly done.
Add chopped potatoes, turnips, and cabbage to the pot.
Season with pepper and salt while cooking.
Serve very hot with apple sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Cabbage + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together562 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together275 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef: Provides the main protein and rich meaty flavour as it cooks in the water.
Potatoes: Add starch that thickens the pot and gives a soft, hearty texture.
Turnips: Add a mildly sweet, earthy flavour and firm texture to the pot.
Cabbage: Adds bulk and a mild sweetness that softens as it simmers.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, turnip, cabbage, pepper, sauce):

Limefits better
Lemonfits better
Avocadofits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, turnip, cabbage, pepper, sauce. 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.