Name: Mushroom Pie
Ingredients: 1½ lbs mushrooms; 1½ lbs potatoes; 1 Spanish onion; 1 oz butter; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; 1 teaspoon mixed herbs; 3 hard-boiled eggs

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 ↓

Mushroom Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Peel and wash the mushrooms, then cut them into 2 or 4 pieces based on their size.
Peel and wash the potatoes, cutting them into walnut-sized pieces.
Parboil the potatoes in 1 pint of water, then transfer them to a pie dish with the water.

Make the filling

Chop the onion and cook it with the mushrooms and butter in ½ pint of water for 10 minutes, adding the herbs and seasoning.
Mix everything well in the pie dish, quarter the hard-boiled eggs, and place them on top.

Bake

Cover with a short crust and bake the pie for 30 to 60 minutes.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,525 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mushroom + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together968 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Mushrooms: Provide the main bulk and savoury, earthy flavour of the filling.
Potatoes: Add starch that thickens the filling and gives body as the pie bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the mushrooms brown while they cook.
Hard-boiled eggs: Add substance and a firm, mild texture to the filling.

Swap the onion

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

Asparagusfits better
Capsicumfits better
Chivefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, potato, butter, pepper, egg. 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.