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Potato Pie

A baked dish of mashed potatoes, meat, onions, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Potato Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the topping

  1. Mash the potatoes with the butter, seasoning, and flour.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the sliced meat in a pie dish and add a little water for gravy.

  2. Boil the onions, mince them finely, and sprinkle over the meat.

  3. Cover with the mashed potatoes, smoothing it neatly with a knife.

  4. Bake until deep brown.

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. Potato + buttertop 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

Potatoes
Form the mashed topping that gives the pie its body and soft texture.
Meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and substance of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the mash and helps the topping brown.
Flour
Thickens the juices and gravy so the filling holds together.
Onions
Add savoury aroma and flavour to the meat layer.

The step that matters

Smoothing the mashed potato topping. An even, smooth layer seals in the meat and gravy and bakes to a uniform brown. Gaps or thick spots can dry out or burn while others stay pale.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, meat, pepper, flour, 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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