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Potato Pie

A baked potato dish topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,458 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Potato 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a dish, combine the potatoes, pepper, salt, butter, and olive oil.

  3. Add enough water to cover the potatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the dish with pastry.

  2. Bake until the pastry is golden and the potatoes are tender.

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 + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the filling, turning soft and starchy as they cook through.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the potatoes taste full and savoury.
Olive oil
Adds fat and moisture, helping the potatoes stay tender and coat evenly.
Pastry
Forms a sealed top that traps steam and browns to a golden, crisp crust.

The step that matters

Bake until the potatoes are fully tender. The pastry seals the dish, so the potatoes cook mainly by trapped steam and heat. Pulling the dish early leaves the centre firm, while the top may already look done. Check the potatoes, not just the crust colour.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Eggplantfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, olive. 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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