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
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Assemble and bake
Layer the sliced potatoes in a pie dish, adding chopped onion, pepper, and salt between each layer.
Pour in a little water and place small pieces of butter on top.
Cover the pie with puff pastry and seal it well.
Bake for about 1.5 hours.
Finish and serve
If desired, add the yolks of hard-boiled eggs before serving and pour in mushroom ketchup through a funnel.
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.
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Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + mushroomtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together968 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,626 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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, softening as they bake into a tender layered body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, melting over the potatoes as the pie bakes.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a sealed crust that traps steam and browns in the oven.
- Onion
- Adds savory flavor that mellows and sweetens as it bakes with the potatoes.
The step that matters
Sealing the puff pastry. A tight seal keeps steam inside the pie so the potatoes cook through in their own moisture. Gaps let steam escape, leaving the filling drier and less evenly cooked.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, pepper, butter, egg, mushroom, ketchup):
- Capsicumfits better
- Chivefits better
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, egg, mushroom, ketchup. 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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