Name: Liver and Potato Pie
Ingredients: 1 lb Sheep’s Fry; 2 lbs Potatoes; a few slices Bacon; 1 Onion; Herbs and Seasoning; water or stock

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 ↓

Liver and Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Parboil the potatoes.
Slice the fry and chop the onion and herbs finely.

Assemble and bake

Grease a pie dish and layer sliced potatoes, seasoning, fry, and bacon, finishing with a layer of potatoes on top.
Fill with water or stock and cover with buttered paper.
Bake for about 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 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

Sheep's fry: Provides the main meaty filling and rich flavour of the pie.
Potatoes: Form the layered base and top, becoming tender and starchy as they cook.
Bacon: Adds savoury fat and salty flavour that seasons the layers as it cooks.
Onion: Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and flavours the filling.

“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.