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Meat Pie

A layered pie of cold meat, onion, potatoes, gravy, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Assemble the pie

  1. Layer thin slices of cold meat in a baking dish.

  2. Add grated onion, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add a layer of thin-sliced potatoes.

  4. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  5. Pour cold gravy, tomato sauce, or soup stock over the layers.

  6. Cover with pastry rolled to ½ inch thick.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes.

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

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

  3. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the savoury filling that is the main body of the pie.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the layers, soaking up some of the gravy as they cook.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic flavour that mellows during baking.
Gravy, tomato sauce, or soup stock
Provides moisture so the layers cook through and do not dry out.
Pastry
Encloses the filling and bakes to a crisp, browned top crust.

The step that matters

Covering with pastry. The layers must be moist and the crust sealed so steam stays in and the filling cooks through. A gap or a thin crust can let liquid escape and leave the potatoes undercooked or the pie dry.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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