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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 and cut in half.

  2. Slice and fry the onions until well browned.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer half the sausage, cover with the browned onions and thick slices of tomatoes.

  2. Add the remaining sausage and pour in the seasoned stock.

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

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

  5. Make a hole in the center 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 main meaty filling and savoury flavour of the pie.
Onions
Browning them first builds sweetness and deeper savoury flavour through the filling.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and a bright acidity that balances the rich sausage.
Potatoes
Mashed, they form a soft topping that holds moisture and browns in the oven.
Stock
Adds moisture and savoury flavour that soaks into the filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until well browned. Deep browning develops sweet, savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction. Pale onions stay sharp and taste raw 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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