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Meat Pie, Vert Simple

A baked pie with cold meat, gravy or butter, onion, mashed potatoes, and egg yolk topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Meat Pie, Vert Simple

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the cold meat in an earthen pie plate.

  3. Add meat gravy or butter and water over the meat.

  4. Sprinkle chopped onion on top.

  5. Cover with well-seasoned mashed potatoes.

  6. Brush the top with the beaten egg yolk.

Bake

  1. Bake in the oven until browned.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the savory filling that the gravy and onion flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft topping that bakes to a golden crust.
Beaten egg yolk
Brushed on top to promote even browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Bake in the oven until browned. Baking long enough lets the egg yolk and potato surface brown through dry heat. Pulling it too early leaves the top pale and the filling underheated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, 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.

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