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Potato Pie

A baked pie with sliced potatoes, onions, herbs, and a crust made from flour, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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

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. Combine sliced potatoes and onions with water in a pot.

  2. Stew until nearly done.

  3. Transfer mixture to a pie dish.

  4. Season with herbs, pepper, and salt.

  5. Add soaked tapioca and butter, mixing gently.

Make the crust and bake

  1. Mix flour with butter or frying oil and enough milk to form a dough.

  2. Roll out the dough and cover the pie filling.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

  4. Serve with green vegetables.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

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

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

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

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 and set into a soft, starchy body as they cook.
Soaked tapioca
Thickens the juices in the filling so it sets rather than running out.
Whole wheat flour
Forms the structure of the dough that encloses the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in both filling and dough.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens during stewing.

The step that matters

Stew until nearly done. Potatoes must be partly cooked before baking, because the oven only has a short time to finish them. Stopping at the right point keeps them tender rather than raw or mushy.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, butter, wheat, flour, 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.

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