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Dessert

Onion Pie

A savory pie of sliced potatoes, onions, apples, and eggs baked with butter, mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Onion Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash and peel the potatoes, then slice them.

  2. Peel the onions and slice them.

  3. Peel and dice the apples.

  4. Make a good crust and cover your dish with it.

  5. Dot the crust with ¼ pound of butter.

  6. Mix mace, grated nutmeg, beaten pepper, and coarse sea salt together, then sprinkle over the butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the potatoes, onions, apples, and eggs in the dish, sprinkling some seasoning between each layer.

  2. Add bits of butter and 6 tablespoons of water on top.

  3. Close the pie and bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the filling and give it a starchy, substantial body when baked.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the layered filling into a sliceable custard-like mass.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying the seasoning and helping the top brown.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma as they soften and sweeten in the oven.
Apples
Add gentle sweetness and acidity that balances the rich eggs and butter.

The step that matters

Layer the potatoes, onions, apples, and eggs in the dish, sprinkling some seasoning between each layer.. Even layering with seasoning distributed between them keeps the filling evenly flavoured and helps the eggs set uniformly rather than in pockets.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, egg, butter, mace, nutmeg, pepper):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, egg, butter, mace, nutmeg, 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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