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Potato Pasty

A baked pasty filled with seasoned meat and mashed potatoes, topped with a crust and browned in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and potato work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 786 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Potato Pasty

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 the pan

  1. Procure a pasty pan with a well-fitting perforated plate and valve-pipe.

  2. Place the meat in the lower part of the pan and season it.

  3. Pour a small quantity of gravy over the meat.

  4. Lay the perforated plate on top of the meat and screw on the valve-pipe.

Top and bake

  1. Spread the mashed potatoes evenly on top, forming a crust at least 3 inches thick.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the potatoes are browned.

  3. Do not remove the cover until ready to serve the meat.

Serve

  1. Serve in the same tin with a neatly-folded napkin around it.

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. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  2. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the savory filling that the potato crust encloses and cooks in its own juices.
Potatoes
Mashed potatoes form the thick crust that covers the meat and browns in the oven.
Gravy
Adds moisture to the meat so it stays juicy while baking.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the crust promotes browning and gives it a glossy surface.

The step that matters

Spread the potato crust to at least 3 inches thick. A thin or uneven potato layer can dry out or let steam escape unevenly, so the crust should be thick, even, and fully covering the meat to keep the filling moist while the top browns.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg. 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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