Name: Potato Pie
Ingredients: 2-3 tablespoons milk; potatoes; salt; mutton or beef or pork or veal

Why it works: Milk and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Potato Pie

Ingredients

2-3 tablespoons milk
potatoes
salt
mutton or beef or pork or veal

Directions

Skin and slice the potatoes.
Season the potatoes and the meat.
Layer the potatoes and meat in a pie dish.
Pour milk over the layers.
Cover with a crust and bake until golden.

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.

Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + muttontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together293 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + muttontop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together814 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).