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Potato Pie

A baked pie of sliced potatoes, celery, onion, and sago or tapioca, topped with short-crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Potato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Slice the potatoes and celery.

  2. In a pan, fry the onion in the butter until soft.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer the sliced potatoes, celery, and fried onion.

  2. Sprinkle in the sago or tapioca and season to taste.

  3. Pour in enough water or milk to fill the dish.

  4. Cover with short-crust pastry and seal the edges.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour, or until golden.

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. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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 pie and soften into a tender filling as they cook.
Sago or tapioca
Thickens the cooking liquid as its starch gelatinises in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour when frying the onion.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma once softened in butter.

The step that matters

Bake until golden and fully cooked. The potatoes must cook through in the sealed pie, and the starch needs enough heat to thicken the liquid. Baking only until the pastry colours may leave raw potato centres, so test for tenderness.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

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

More potato pie recipes

Sweet 114Irish 16Crust 10Lemon 7Southern Sweet 5 See all 98 →

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