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Tomato Pie

A savory pie made with sliced onions, tomatoes, breadcrumbs, butter, and mashed potato crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Tomato Pie

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. Thinly slice the onion and blanch it.

  2. Fry the onion in fat until lightly browned.

  3. Skin and slice the tomatoes.

Assemble

  1. Layer onions in a pie dish, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  2. Add a layer of tomatoes, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and add pieces of butter.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is almost full.

  4. Spread well-mashed potatoes thickly on top to form a crust.

Bake

  1. Score the potatoes with a fork and bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 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

Onion
Provides savory sweetness and body as it softens and browns in the layers.
Ripe tomatoes
Supply moisture and acidity that flavor the filling and soften during baking.
White breadcrumbs
Absorb tomato juices so the layers hold together rather than running out.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top and filling brown and taste rounded.
Mashed potatoes
Form a thick starchy crust that sets when baked and browns on the surface.

The step that matters

Spreading the potato topping. The potato must be well mashed and spread thickly to seal the filling; loose or thin potato can let juices escape and dry out the crust before it browns.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, butter, potato. 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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