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Beefsteak Pie

A pastry crust filled with sliced beef, seasoned with pepper and salt, and baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak 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.

Prepare the crust

  1. Mix flour and butter to make a thick paste, then knead quickly on a board.

  2. Roll the paste flat with a rolling pin.

  3. Turn the dish upside down on the flattened paste and cut out the cover shape.

  4. Roll out the trimmings and cut them into strips.

  5. Wet the edges of the dish and place the strips around the edges as a foundation for the cover.

Fill the pie

  1. Season the beef slices with pepper and salt.

  2. Roll each seasoned slice into a small bundle or lay them flat in the dish.

  3. Add a little gravy or cold water and a tablespoon of flour for thickening.

  4. Place the cover on the dish, pressing down the edges tightly.

  5. If any paste remains, cut or stamp it into decorative shapes and place on the cover.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  2. Optional: Glaze the crust with a mixture of beaten egg white and water or sugar and water while hot.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the paste and structure of the crust that holds the pie together.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that makes the crust tender and flaky as it bakes.
Beef
Provides the main filling, becoming tender as it cooks in the dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy or liquid in the filling so it does not run out.
Egg white
Gives the optional glaze a glossy, browned finish on the crust.

The step that matters

Pressing the cover edges tightly. A tight seal keeps juices and steam inside the pie. A loose edge can let the filling leak and the crust dry out during baking.

“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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