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Cottage Pie

A baked dish of minced meat topped with mashed potatoes, seasoned with pepper, salt, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cottage 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Rub the cold potatoes through a wire sieve with a wooden spoon.

  3. Grease a pie dish and layer the potatoes and minced meat alternately.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add a little pepper, salt, and gravy to each layer.

  2. Continue layering until the dish is full, leaving a good layer of potatoes for the top.

  3. Mark the top with a fork and add a few bits of dripping or butter.

  4. Bake until golden brown and serve hot.

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

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 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

Cold potatoes
Riced potatoes form a soft, fluffy topping that browns well in the oven.
Minced meat
Provides the savoury filling base that the gravy moistens and seasons.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the filling stays juicy rather than dry.
Dripping or butter
Adds fat that helps the top brown and gives a richer finish.

The step that matters

Marking the top with a fork and adding dripping or butter. Fork marks and fat on the potato surface give the topping more area to brown, so the pie turns golden rather than pale.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, butter. 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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