Why it works: Meat and potato work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 786 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Modern Potato Pasty
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Procure a pasty pan with a well-fitting, perforated plate and a valve-pipe.
Place the meat in the lower part of the pan and season it.
Pour a small quantity of gravy over the meat.
Lay the perforated plate on top of the meat and screw on the valve-pipe.
Assemble and bake
Mash the potatoes and spread them evenly on top, forming a crust at least 3 inches thick.
Bake in the oven for at least 1 hour until the potatoes are nicely browned.
Serve
Serve directly from the pan with a folded napkin around it.
Dish the meat first, then add a section of the potato pasty and gravy beside 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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Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together786 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Meat
- Forms the savoury filling and provides the main flavour of the dish.
- Potatoes
- Form the thick top crust that bakes golden brown and holds in the filling.
- Gravy
- Adds moisture so the meat stays juicy during baking.
The step that matters
Forming the potato crust. The potato layer must be thick enough, at least 3 inches, to seal and insulate the meat so it cooks through and stays moist while the top browns.
“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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