Skip to main content
Main

Potato Tartlets

A baked dish of potatoes and beans in thin pie crust, topped with breadcrumbs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Potato Tartlets

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.

Make the shells

  1. Line small tartlet molds with thin pie crust.

  2. Fill the molds with dry beans and bake.

  3. Remove the beans from the tartlets.

Fill and brown

  1. Prepare the potatoes as for Regent.

  2. Fill the tartlets with the prepared potatoes.

  3. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  4. Brown in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Serve.

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. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Beans + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Thin pie crust
Forms the tender pastry case that holds the filling.
Dry beans
Weigh down the crust so it stays flat instead of puffing while it bakes.
Potatoes
Form the soft, moist filling inside the tartlets.
Bread crumbs
Absorb surface moisture and help the top turn crisp and golden.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the topping brown.

The step that matters

Fill the molds with dry beans and bake. The beans weigh the pastry down so it sets flat in the mold. Without them, the crust can puff up and shrink away from the sides as it bakes.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Peanutfits about as well
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, bread, butter. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes