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Meat Pie for Lunch

A savory pie with rump steak, game, bacon, mushrooms, and gravy, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Meat Pie for Lunch

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 the filling

  1. Place the larded rump steak in the bottom of a saucepan.

  2. Add the small pieces of game on top of the steak, seasoned with salt and pepper, and add bacon.

  3. Stew the mixture well, then add chopped mushrooms and rich gravy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the filling into a pie crust with a thick ornamental edge.

  2. Cover with a loose top crust to allow for additional gravy.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is light brown.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Provides rich meaty flavour and body to the filling as it stews.
Game
Supplies the main meat flavour and texture of the filling.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury depth that flavours the stewed filling.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the filling.
Rich gravy
Moistens the filling and carries flavour through the pie.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the structure.

The step that matters

Covering with a loose top crust. Leaving the top crust loose leaves room for the gravy to expand as it heats and thickens, so the filling stays moist rather than boiling out or drying as the pie bakes.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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