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Roman Pie

A savory meat pie with suet crust, containing minced beef or mutton, macaroni, ham, onions, and vermicelli.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Roman Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, combine minced beef or mutton, macaroni, ham, pepper, salt, onions, mushroom ketchup or tomato sauce, and water or gravy.

  3. Line a pudding dish with suet crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the meat mixture into the lined dish and sprinkle in the broken vermicelli.

  2. Cover with more suet crust and bake for 20 to 30 minutes until the crust is nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Turn out onto a hot dish and serve with gravy or rich tomato sauce.

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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 or mutton
Forms the savoury, substantial body of the filling.
Suet crust
Forms a rich pastry that bakes crisp and golden on top and bottom.
Cooked macaroni
Adds chewy texture and bulk to the meat filling.
Cooked fat ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and richness from its fat.
Broken vermicelli
Adds a thin, tender layer of starch that soaks up juices.

The step that matters

Covering and browning the crust. The top crust must seal the filling and bake until nicely browned. Suet pastry is rich and dense, so an oven that is not hot enough can leave it pale and doughy rather than crisp.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, ham, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, pepper, mushroom. 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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