Skip to main content
Main

Savoury Mushroom Pie

A pie made with short crust pastry, filled with pancakes, cold potato, fried mushrooms, and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Savoury Mushroom Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pancakes

  1. Mix flour with water to a cream-like consistency, then add the beaten egg and enough milk to make a thin batter.

  2. Season and fry in butter to make thin pancakes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut pancakes into small squares and place in a pie dish.

  2. Add chopped cold potato and fried mushrooms.

  3. Pour brown gravy over the mixture.

  4. Cover with short crust pastry 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Potato + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together968 recipes

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the batter base and thickens the pancakes so they hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps the pancakes set when fried.
Mushrooms
Add savoury flavour and a tender, meaty texture to the filling.
Cold potato
Adds body and starch that gives the filling substance and a soft texture.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness that soaks into the pancakes and filling.

The step that matters

Cover with short crust pastry and bake until golden. The pastry must seal the filling so steam does not escape and dry the pie. Baking until golden means the crust has browned and the fat has set, which gives a crisp top and a fully cooked interior.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, milk, butter, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, butter, mushroom. 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes