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Dessert

Beef-steak Pie

A savory pie filled with small pieces of beef steak, seasoned with pepper, salt, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, and optional tomatoes, topped with crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Beef-steak Pie

Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef-steak 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 filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dust the steak pieces with flour and place them in a pie dish.

  3. Season each layer with pepper, coarse sea salt, and cayenne pepper.

  4. Fill the dish with steak slices to raise the crust in the middle.

  5. Add enough water or leftover gravy to half fill the dish.

  6. Stir in Worcestershire sauce and optional tomatoes if needed.

Top and bake

  1. Moisten the edge of the pie dish.

  2. Lay the crust over the pie.

  3. Trim the crust to the edge of the dish.

  4. Butter the top of the crust.

  5. Bake until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + tomatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and savory flavor once it becomes tender through slow cooking.
Flour
Dusting the steak helps thicken the juices into a gravy around the meat.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds a tangy, savory depth that boosts the overall meaty flavor of the filling.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form a crisp, golden top.

The step that matters

Add the liquid before the crust. Enough water or gravy must half fill the dish so the meat can steam and turn tender while the crust bakes; too little liquid leaves the filling dry and tough.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, beef, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, beef, sauce. 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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