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Beefsteak Pie

A savory pie with layers of beefsteak, potatoes, onions, and gravy, topped with pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

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

  1. Cut the steak into 2-inch long and 1-inch wide strips.

  2. Stew the steak with the bone in enough water to cover until partly cooked.

  3. Line a baking dish with pie paste.

Layer and assemble

  1. Layer the meat in the dish, seasoning with salt, pepper, and onion.

  2. Add a layer of sliced potatoes with bits of butter on top.

  3. Continue layering steak and potatoes until the dish is full.

  4. Pour in the thickened gravy or broth.

  5. Cover with a top crust, making a slit in the middle.

Bake

  1. Brush the crust with beaten egg and bake at 400°F (200°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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

Steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender when partly stewed and then baked.
Potatoes
Add starchy body and bulk, soaking up flavour from the meat and gravy as they bake.
Pie paste
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Gravy or broth
Adds moisture and savoury flavour, thickened with brown flour to bind the filling.
Egg
Brushed on the crust to promote even golden browning.

The step that matters

Stewing the steak until partly cooked. Beef from rump or flank is lean and tough, and it needs enough gentle moist heat to soften before baking. Stopping too early leaves the meat chewy, while overcooking it before the pie is assembled leaves it dry after the oven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, pepper, butter, flour, egg. 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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