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Beefsteak Pie

A pie filled with sliced steak, herbs, and a colored water sauce, topped with pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and pasta are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,091 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the steak into about twenty thin pieces, including fat.

  2. Season the steak with salt, pepper, and chopped herbs.

  3. Arrange the steak pieces symmetrically in a pie dish, forming a high center.

  4. Mix the water with the coloring and pour it over the meat.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the pie with the pastry and seal it well.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

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. Pepper + pastatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main filling and becomes tender and savory as it cooks slowly.
Coloring
Adds color to the liquid poured over the meat, giving the filling its appearance.
Water
Mixes with the coloring and adds moisture that gently steams the meat as it bakes.
Pasta
Forms the pastry crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Seal the pastry well. A tight seal keeps steam and juices inside the pie, so the meat cooks in its own moisture and the filling does not dry out or leak during the long, slow bake.

“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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