Name: Roast Beef Pie
Ingredients: roast beef or leftover beefsteak, thinly sliced; rich biscuit dough, rolled to ¼ inch thick; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter, small piece; cold potatoes, sliced; cold gravy (optional)

Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Roast Beef 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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a deep dish with the rolled biscuit dough.

Layer and bake

Layer some beef slices in the dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Add a small piece of butter, a few potato slices, and some cold gravy if available.
Repeat layering with remaining beef, seasoning, and other ingredients until the dish is full.
Cover with dough, leaving a slit in the center.
Bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Biscuit + potatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together137 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 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

Roast beef or leftover beefsteak: Provides the main meat filling, cooked through during baking and giving savory flavor.
Rich biscuit dough: Forms the crust that encloses the filling and bakes into a golden, flaky casing.
Cold potatoes: Adds starchy bulk to the filling and helps soak up juices as the pie bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the filling as it melts during baking.