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Cottage Pie

A pie of minced cold meat topped with mashed potatoes and baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cottage 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 the filling

  1. Mince the cold meat and place it in a pie dish, about 1 to 1.5 inches deep.

  2. Cover the meat with gravy and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Add Worcestershire sauce for extra flavor if desired.

Top and bake

  1. Spread mashed potatoes over the top and smooth it out.

  2. Cut the top into diamond shapes with a knife.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the top is crisp and 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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  3. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  4. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes
  5. Potato + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the savory base of the filling, providing the main body of the pie.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor so the meat does not dry out while baking.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft topping that crisps and browns in the oven as a contrast to the filling.

The step that matters

Baking until the top is crisp and brown. Mashed potatoes brown through dry surface heat, and the starch must dry and caramelize on top. Pulling the pie too early leaves a pale, soggy crust over a cool filling.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, sauce. 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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