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Wellington Pie

A pie of boiled meat scraps with gravy, macaroni, tomatoes, and bread crumbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wellington 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

  1. Boil the scraps of meat until tender, adding a little butter and enough flour to thicken like brown gravy.

  2. Boil the macaroni in salted water for 15 minutes, then line the bottom and sides of a pudding dish with it.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the meat and its gravy in the dish, adding small pieces of stale bread in the center.

  2. Top with slices of tomato or half a can of tomatoes, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Sprinkle fine bread or cracker crumbs over the top and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

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

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. 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

Flour
Thickens the meat juices into a brown gravy that moistens the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the gravy taste rounder and smoother.
Stale bread
Soaks up gravy and holds its shape, giving the filling body.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity that brighten the rich meat.
Fine bread or cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned topping in the oven.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, pepper, bread):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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