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Roman Pie

A savory pie made with minced meat, cheese, macaroni, onion, and short crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roman Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease a plain mold with butter and sprinkle vermicelli over it.

  2. Line the mold with short crust pastry.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix all ingredients together and moisten with a little milk.

  2. Put the mixture into the mold and cover the top with pastry.

  3. Bake on the lower shelf of the oven at 350°F (175°C) until the pastry is cooked.

Serve

  1. Turn out and serve with brown sauce or tomato sauce.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides savoury flavour.
Grated cheese
Melts into the filling, adding richness and binding the mixture together.
Cooked macaroni
Adds body and a soft, starchy texture to the filling.
Butter
Greases the mold and adds fat for flavour and a tender finish.

The step that matters

Moisten with a little milk. Too little liquid leaves the filling dry and crumbly, while too much makes it soggy and can wet the pastry. Add the milk gradually so the mixture holds together when pressed into the mold.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, cheese, pepper, mustard, butter, 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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