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Meat Pies and Puddings

A savory pie made with mashed potatoes as crust and filled with meat and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Meat Pies and Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  2. Line a buttered pie dish with the mashed potatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Add the meat and gravy on top.

  2. Shape a crust over the top with the remaining mashed potatoes.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  4. If not browned, hold a red-hot fire shovel over it for 1-2 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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  3. 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

Potatoes
Form the base and crust, becoming soft and fluffy when mashed, and hold the filling together.
Meat and gravy
Provides the savoury filling, and the gravy adds moisture so the pie does not dry out.

The step that matters

Browning the crust. Mashed potato browns only slowly at baking heat. Checking the top and finishing it briefly over intense direct heat gives colour and a crisp surface, which the oven alone may not reach.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper. 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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