Skip to main content
Main

Leek Pie

A baked pie of diced leeks and potatoes in a milk, egg, and flour batter.

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

Why it works: Leek and potato work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Leek Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Dice the potatoes and leeks.

  2. Parboil them in 1 pint of water, adding the herbs, butter, and seasoning.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the vegetables in a pie dish.

  2. Make a batter with the milk, eggs, and flour, then pour it over the vegetables.

  3. Mix everything well and bake the pie for 1.5 to 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Leek + potatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

  3. Leek + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 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

What each ingredient does

Leeks
Provide the main savoury body and mild onion-like flavour of the pie.
Potatoes
Add starch and bulk, giving the filling a soft, substantial texture.
Eggs
Help the batter set during baking, binding it into a custard-like structure.
Fine wheat flour
Thickens the milk and egg batter so it holds together around the vegetables.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the batter, adding moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and flavour in the parboiled vegetables.

The step that matters

Mix everything well before baking. The batter must be evenly distributed through the vegetables, because the eggs and flour set during baking and uneven mixing leaves pockets of loose batter or dry vegetables.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, nutmeg, milk, pepper, wheat, flour, egg):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, nutmeg, milk, pepper, wheat, flour, egg. 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.

You might also like

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