Name: Potato Pie
Ingredients: 4 boiled potatoes, sliced; 2 tablespoons minced onion; 2 tablespoons chopped parsley; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ cup new milk; 1 egg yolk; breadcrumbs

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. 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.

Mix the sliced potatoes, minced onion, chopped parsley, pepper, salt, and new milk in a bowl, then stir thoroughly.
Place the mixture in a baking dish.
Spread a layer of breadcrumbs mixed with the egg yolk over the top.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until thoroughly cooked.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

Potatoes: Form the bulk of the pie and soften into a tender, starchy body as they bake.
New milk: Adds moisture so the potatoes stay tender rather than drying out in the oven.
Egg yolk: Mixed into the breadcrumbs to help the topping set and brown in the oven.
Breadcrumbs: Form a crisp topping layer that browns over the potatoes as they bake.

Swap the onion

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

Carrotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, pepper, milk, 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.