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Meat Pie

A savory pie with a meat filling and a double-layered crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat 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.

Make the filling

  1. Combine the cold meat, stock or water, butter, minced onion, minced carrot, flour, salt, and pepper in a pot.

  2. Cook the mixture until heated through.

Make the crust

  1. Mix the flour, butter, lard, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cold water until a dough forms.

  2. Roll out the dough.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with the rolled dough.

  2. Fill the crust with the meat mixture.

  3. Cover with another layer of dough.

  4. Seal the edges.

  5. Cut slits in the top for steam to escape.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the filling and gives it savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the filling and gives structure to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in both filling and crust.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and flaky.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and lightens.

The step that matters

Cutting steam slits in the top crust. Steam builds up inside a sealed pie as the filling heats. Without vents, pressure can lift or split the top crust and make the filling leak out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, carrot, flour, pepper, sugar. 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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