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Meat Pies

A baked cornmeal-based meat pie with tomato, onion, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,065 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Meat Pies

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.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the fat in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onion and raw meat, stirring until the meat is no longer red.

  3. Stir in the tomato and seasoning.

  4. If using cooked meat, add it with the tomato after browning the onion and heat through.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking dish and layer in the cereal.

  2. Add the meat and gravy, then cover with more cereal dotted with fat.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Rice + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,065 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 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

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the layers, setting into a firm, sliceable base as it bakes.
Meat
Supplies savory flavor and substance; browning it first adds depth to the gravy.
Onion
Sweetens and deepens the flavor of the gravy as it browns in the fat.
Tomato
Adds acidity and moisture, forming the gravy that keeps the layers tender.
Fat
Carries flavor into the onion and meat and adds richness to the top layer.

The step that matters

Browning the onion and raw meat. Cooking until the meat is no longer red ensures it is fully cooked before baking, and browning builds flavor through the Maillard reaction. Undercooked meat can remain unsafe even after the pie bakes.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, pepper, meat, tomato. 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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