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Beefsteak Pie

A savory pie with diced steak, onions, mushroom catsup, and butter, baked under a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. 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 the meat

  1. Cut the steak into small squares, beating each flat and removing bone, fat, and gristle.

Layer and assemble

  1. Strew a little chopped onion in the bottom of a baking dish.

  2. Layer the meat in the dish, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  3. Scatter bits of floured butter over the meat, then add more onion.

  4. Pour in the mushroom catsup and a little water (or gravy for better flavor).

Bake

  1. Cover with pastry crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for nearly two hours.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, slow baking.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts into the meat and juices.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Cover with pastry crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for nearly two hours. Steak is tough collagen-rich muscle that needs long, gentle heat to become tender. Baking too hot or too briefly can leave the meat chewy while the crust over-browns.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mushroom, butter, pepper. 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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