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English Pot Pie of Beef

A savory pot pie made with beef, carrots, onions, turnip, suet crust, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

English Pot Pie of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Lightly flour the steak pieces.

  2. Heat a three-quart iron saucepan on the stove.

  3. Add the fat from the steak to the saucepan.

  4. Quickly fry the meat until browned.

  5. Add the carrot, onion, and turnip to the saucepan.

  6. Stir the vegetables quickly.

  7. Pour in the boiling water.

  8. Season with salt and pepper.

  9. Cover the saucepan tightly.

  10. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  11. Reduce the heat.

  12. Let the mixture simmer for nearly 2 hours.

Make the crust

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped suet, flour, and salt.

  2. Make a hole in the center of the dough.

  3. Pour in the cold water.

  4. Mix with a knife to bind the crumbs.

  5. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick and slightly larger than the saucepan lid.

  6. Taste the gravy to ensure it is seasoned well.

Bake and serve

  1. Lay the dough over the meat and vegetables.

  2. Place the saucepan on the hottest part of the stove for 1 minute.

  3. Let the pie simmer for 1 hour.

  4. Cut the crust like a pie.

  5. Serve the pie around the meat.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main meat, which browns and becomes tender during long simmering.
Suet
Adds fat to the crust, keeping it short and tender as it cooks.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crust and thickens the gravy.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy as it softens.
Onion
Adds savory depth and aroma to the gravy as it cooks down.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and substance to the filling as it softens.

The step that matters

Let the mixture simmer for nearly 2 hours. Long, gentle simmering is needed to make the tough round steak tender. Boiling hard instead toughens the meat and can leave the gravy cloudy or uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, carrot, turnip, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, carrot, turnip, pepper. 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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