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Meat Pie

A pie of beef, tomatoes, and mashed potato crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 ↓

Meat Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Cook the beef until tender.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour and pour it into a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the sliced raw potatoes on top of the meat.

  2. Cover with a pie crust made from mashed potatoes, egg, butter, milk, and enough flour to roll out.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add tomatoes to the meat and stew for 5 minutes before serving.

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. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main savory meat filling that becomes tender through slow cooking.
Flour
Starch thickens the gravy and adds structure to the rollable crust.
Mashed potatoes
Give the crust body and softness, holding moisture while it bakes.
Egg
Binds the crust ingredients together and helps it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and tenderises the crust.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the meat, brightening its flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour must be fully mixed in and heated so its starch swells and thickens the liquid. Undercooked flour leaves lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, egg, butter, milk, flour, onion):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, egg, butter, milk, flour, onion. 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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