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Sausage and Tomato Pie

A savory pie with sausage, tomatoes, onions, potatoes, and stock baked in a pie dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Sausage and Tomato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the sausage in water for 5 minutes, then remove the skins.

  2. Cut the sausage in half.

  3. Slice the onions and fry them until well browned.

Layer the filling

  1. Layer half the sausage in the pie dish.

  2. Layer the sliced onions on top.

  3. Layer thick slices of tomatoes on top.

  4. Add the remaining sausage.

  5. Pour in the seasoned stock.

Top and bake

  1. Mash the potatoes with a little milk and salt, then pile them on top of the dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Make a hole in the center of the pie and fill it with seasoned gravy.

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 + oniontop 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. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. 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

Sausage
Provides the meaty, fatty base and most of the savoury flavour of the pie.
Onions
Frying until browned adds sweetness and deep savoury flavour to the filling.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a bright acidity that cuts through the rich sausage.
Potatoes
Mashed starch forms a soft topping that bakes into a set, golden layer.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that moistens the layers and carries the seasoning through the pie.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until well browned. Browning drives the Maillard reaction and caramelises the sugars, creating sweetness and depth. Pale, underdone onions stay sharp and raw-tasting in the finished pie.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, potato, pepper. 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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