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Sea Pie

A savory pie with layers of onions, salt beef, potatoes, pork, and a crust, boiled for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix flour, butter, and salt to form a thick pudding crust; line a dish with it.

  2. Layer sliced onions at the bottom, then salt beef, sliced potatoes, and pork.

  3. Add another layer of onions and sprinkle black pepper over all.

Cook

  1. Cover with the crust and tie down tightly with a cloth dipped in boiling water and floured.

  2. Boil for two hours and serve in the dish.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the thick pudding crust that encloses the filling and holds in steam.
Butter
Adds fat to the crust, making it tender and rich.
Salt beef
Provides savoury, salty meat flavour that deepens during boiling.
Potatoes
Absorb juices from the meat and onions, becoming soft and starchy.
Pork
Adds richness and savoury flavour as its fat renders into the filling.
Onions
Release sweetness and moisture as they soften, flavouring the layers.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth down tightly. A tight seal keeps steam trapped inside, so the filling cooks through in moist heat. A loose cover lets steam escape and the contents can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, beef, potato, pork, 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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