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Cornish Pasties

A pastry filled with potato, meat, and onion, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cornish Pasties

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

  1. In a bowl, rub the lard, butter, or dripping into the flour until fine.

  2. Add just enough cold water to form a damp paste.

  3. Shape the paste into a ball, leaving the bowl clean.

  4. Roll out the paste on a floured surface to about ¼ inch thick.

  5. Cut into rounds using a basin or round cutter dipped in flour.

Fill and bake

  1. Place some cooked potato, cold meat, and cooked onion in each round, seasoned with pepper and salt.

  2. Wet the edges, press them together firmly, and brush with beaten egg or milk.

  3. Place on a greased baking tin and bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for 15 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.

  1. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry once mixed with water and fat.
Lard, butter, or dripping
Fat rubbed into the flour, giving the pastry a short, tender texture.
Cooked potato
Adds bulk and moisture to the filling.
Cold meat
Provides the main savoury filling.
Egg or milk
Brushed on the edges, it gives the pastry a golden browned finish.

The step that matters

Sealing the edges. If the edges are not wet and pressed together firmly, they can open during baking and let the filling leak out. Wetting them lets the pastry bond into a sealed case.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

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