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Lentil Pie

A savory pie made with lentils, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, herbs, eggs, and butter, baked with a short crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lentil 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.

Prepare

  1. Cook the lentils beforehand.

  2. Peel, wash, and dice the potatoes and onion.

  3. Fry the potatoes and onion in butter until nearly soft.

  4. Scald and slice the tomatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix the fried vegetables, lentils, tomatoes, herbs, and seasoning together.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish and add enough water or vegetable stock for gravy.

  3. Quarter the hard-boiled eggs and place them on top.

  4. Cover with a short crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 to 1½ hours.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Lentils + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Lentils + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,221 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lentils
Provide the bulk and protein-rich body that holds the filling together.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and thicken the filling with their starch.
Butter
Fat for frying the vegetables, adding richness and browning.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that brightens the savoury filling.
Spanish onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the butter.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliceable texture to the top layer.

The step that matters

Fry the potatoes and onion until nearly soft. Partly cooking the potatoes and onion first ensures they become tender during baking, since the filling is only heated through and the short baking time may not fully soften raw starch.

Swap the lentils

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, tomato, onion, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Lentilsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, tomato, onion, egg, butter, pepper. 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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