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Vegetarian Potato Pie

A baked pie made with eggs, breadcrumbs, parsley, milk, butter, and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Vegetarian Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Boil the eggs hard and chop them finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped eggs, breadcrumbs, parsley, milk, and butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill a dish with the mixture and top with mashed potatoes.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until brown.

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. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Absorb the milk and butter, giving the filling body and a light, moist texture.
Eggs
Bind the filling as they set, holding it together when sliced.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a softer texture to the filling.
Mashed potatoes
Form the topping that browns in the oven, adding a crisp, golden surface.
Milk
Moistens the breadcrumbs and eggs, keeping the filling soft during baking.

The step that matters

Bake until brown. The oven must be hot enough to brown the mashed potato topping. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction on the potato surface, which needs dry heat to develop flavour and colour.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Dillfits less well

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