Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Potato Pasty
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Cut the meat into small pieces.
Place the meat at the bottom of a pan.
Season the meat with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Add the broth or gravy and butter broken into small pieces.
Top and bake
Put on the perforated plate with its valve-pipe screwed on.
Fill the space to the top of the tube with nicely mashed potatoes mixed with a little milk.
Finish the surface of the potatoes in an ornamental manner.
Bake until the potatoes are covered with a delicate crust, retaining the savory steam from the meat.
Serve immediately with a napkin folded around it.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together293 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rump steak or mutton cutlets
- Forms the savory meat filling that cooks in its own juices under the potato crust.
- Mashed potatoes
- Forms the top layer that browns in the oven and seals in the steam.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the filling.
- Broth or gravy
- Adds moisture so the meat stays juicy and the filling creates steam.
The step that matters
Bake until the potatoes are covered with a delicate crust. The potato top must brown lightly without drying out. The sealed potato layer traps steam so the meat cooks gently in its own juices, and removing it too early leaves the meat underdone while overbaking dries it.
“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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