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Cauliflower and Potato Pie

A baked pie with boiled cauliflower, boiled potatoes, milk, eggs, wheatmeal, butter, cheese, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cauliflower and 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

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

Assemble the pie

  1. In a pie dish, layer the chopped cauliflower and potatoes, sprinkling half the cheese between the layers.

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, wheatmeal, pepper, and salt to make a batter.

  3. Pour the batter over the vegetables in the pie dish.

  4. Dot the top with the butter pieces and sprinkle the remaining cheese over everything.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour until golden and set.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Set the batter into a firm custard that holds the pie together when cut.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Thickens the milk and egg batter so it binds around the vegetables.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the batter, keeping the filling moist as it bakes.
Grated cheese
Melts into the layers and browns on top, adding richness and savour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, milk, egg, butter, cheese, 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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