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Meat Pies and Puddings

A pie made with mashed potato crust and a filling of meat and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Meat Pies and Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  2. Line a buttered pie dish with the mashed potatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the meat and gravy into the dish.

  2. Shape a crust over the top with the remaining mashed potatoes.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. If not browned, hold a red-hot fire-shovel over it for 1-2 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  2. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Mashed potatoes form the pie's base and crust, giving a soft, sturdy structure.
Meat and gravy
Provides the savoury filling, and the gravy adds moisture so the filling stays juicy.
Butter
Greasing the dish keeps the potato base from sticking, and butter adds richness and helps browning.

The step that matters

Shaping the crust over the top. The potato crust must cover the filling fully and be sealed at the edges, otherwise the gravy can bubble through and dry or burn during baking.

“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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