Name: Queen's Apple and Onion Pie
Ingredients: 3 cups Allinson breadcrumbs; 3 eggs; 1.5 lbs apples, sliced; 2 lbs Spanish onions, sliced; 2 oz butter, divided; ½ teaspoon spice; Salt and pepper to taste; Hot milk as needed

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Queen's Apple and Onion 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 the filling

In a pan, melt 1 oz of butter and gently stew the sliced onions and apples with the spice, salt, and pepper until tender.
In a bowl, mix the breadcrumbs with the beaten eggs and enough hot milk to create a smooth mixture.

Assemble and bake

Butter a pie dish with ½ oz of butter. Layer breadcrumbs, then apple and onion mixture, and repeat until the dish is full, finishing with breadcrumbs on top.
Dot the remaining butter on top and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.
Serve with brown gravy.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs: Form the body of the pie and absorb the eggs and milk to set a soft, sliceable layer.
Eggs: Bind the breadcrumbs and milk so the mixture sets when baked.
Apples: Add moisture and tartness that soften into the filling during slow stewing.
Spanish onions: Add sweetness and savour as they soften and caramelise slowly in butter.
Butter: Adds richness and flavour to the onions and apples, and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Stewing the onions and apples until tender. Cooking them gently until fully soft matters, because raw or firm pieces stay crunchy and release water into the custard-like layers, leaving the pie watery and uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, apple, butter, pepper, milk):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, apple, butter, pepper, milk. 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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Queen's Apple and Onion Pie