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Baked Meat Pie

A baked pie with diced meat, suet crust, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,208 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Baked Meat 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.

Cook the meat

  1. Dredge the meat with flour.

  2. Cover with boiling water and simmer for 1 to 3 hours.

  3. Alternatively, fry the meat in a covered saucepan with a slice of fat salt pork for the same time.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cut the meat into dice and place it in a deep baking dish.

  2. Fill the dish with gravy.

Make and bake the crust

  1. In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Chop the suet into the flour mixture.

  3. Mix in the ice-cold water until a dough forms.

  4. Roll out the dough lightly and place it on top of the meat.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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.

  1. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + porktop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Meat
Provides the savoury filling and bulk of the pie.
Flour
Coats the meat and forms the structure of the crust dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the crust rises and becomes lighter.
Suet
Chopped into the flour, its fat keeps the crust tender and flaky.
Gravy
Fills the dish, adding moisture and flavour around the meat.

The step that matters

Keep the water ice-cold and mix the dough lightly. Cold fat and water stay in small pieces that melt during baking, creating flaky layers. Overworking the dough develops gluten, making the crust tough.

“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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