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Corned Beef Pie

A baked pie of corned beef, onions, eggs, and a butter‑flour sauce topped with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Corned Beef Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the corned beef, minced onion, yolk of hard‑boiled egg, raw egg, and black pepper.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour, and stir until smooth. Slowly add the boiling water, stirring until perfectly smooth, then boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour the sauce into the beef mixture and stir until just at boiling point.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish that holds at least 3 pints.

Top and bake

  1. Mash the hot potatoes with milk, butter, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  2. Spread the mashed potatoes over the beef mixture and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven, glazing with butter as it begins to color.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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

Corned beef
Provides the main savory meat body of the filling.
Raw egg
Sets during baking, binding the filling into a sliceable mass.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the filling.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth sauce that holds the filling together.
Potatoes
Form a mashed topping that softens, then browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the potato topping brown.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the sauce until smooth. Flour lumps form if the water is added too quickly or not stirred well, and lumps do not dissolve during baking. Stirring while adding the boiling water keeps the thickened sauce smooth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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