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Dessert

Potato Pie

A sweet potato custard pie topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Potato 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.

Make the filling

  1. Press 1 pint of mashed potato through a colander.

  2. Add 1 pint of milk, ½ cup of creamed butter, 1 cup of sugar, 3 well-beaten egg yolks, 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, a pinch of salt, a pinch of mace, and the juice and grated rind of ½ lemon. Mix well and pour into a pie crust like a custard pie.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Add the meringue and finish

  1. Beat the 3 egg whites until stiff, then add 3 tablespoons of sugar and a little flavoring.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and return to the oven, baking until it becomes a delicate brown.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 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

Mashed potato
Forms the thick body of the filling, giving the pie its soft, sliceable structure.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set, giving the filling its rich, smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth mouthfeel to the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping, which browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue brown and hold its shape.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to a stable foam before the sugar is added; under-whipped or greasy whites will not hold peaks and the meringue can weep or sink.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, milk, butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, lemon. 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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