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Beefsteak Pie

A pastry-wrapped dish of thinly sliced beef, onions, and boiled potatoes, seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a deep dish.

  3. Spread a thin layer of pastry over the bottom, sides, and edges.

  4. Trim the beef of all bone, fat, and gristle and cut it into thin pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. Beat the beef with a rolling pin until tender.

  2. Layer the beef in the dish.

  3. Season the beef with pepper, salt, nutmeg, allspice, catsup, and onion.

  4. Add a layer of sliced boiled potatoes on top of the beef until the dish is filled.

  5. Pour a little water into the dish.

  6. Dot the dish with butter.

  7. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat filling, which becomes tender during the long bake.
Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling as the pie bakes.
Boiled irish potatoes
Form a starchy top layer that fills the dish and absorbs savory juices.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the beef filling as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Beat the beef with a rolling pin until tender. Mechanically breaking up the meat fibres helps it soften during baking, so the thin pieces do not stay tough. Cutting it thinly first helps the beef cook through within the bake time.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, potato):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, pepper, nutmeg, allspice, potato. 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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