Name: Beef Steak and Kidney Pie
Ingredients: 1 lb beef steak; ½ lb ox kidney; salt; pepper; small piece of fat; pastry for pie

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Steak and Kidney 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).
Cut the beef steak and ox kidney into small pieces.
Season with salt and pepper.
Roll the meat with a small piece of fat in each.
Place the rolls in a pudding dish.

Bake and serve

Cover with pastry and brush with egg yolk.
Bake until golden brown, about 25-30 minutes.
Serve hot or cold.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 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

Beef steak: Provides the main meaty body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Ox kidney: Adds a rich, deep flavour and a firm, chewy texture to the filling.
Small piece of fat: Melts during baking, adding moisture and richness to the lean meat.
Pastry for pie: Encloses the filling and bakes to a golden, crisp crust.

“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.