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Meat Pie

A savory pie with stewed beef, potatoes, and broth, topped with a buttered crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the beef until very tender.

  2. Chop the beef and potatoes finely.

  3. Combine the beef, potatoes, and beef broth in a pot and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Season with pepper, salt, and butter.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and cover with pie crust.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is golden 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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup beef
Provides the main savoury filling once stewed until tender.
Potatoes
Add starch and body to the filling, helping it hold together when chopped and cooked.
Beef broth
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the filling as it cooks.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the outer layer.

The step that matters

Stewing the beef until very tender. Beef stays tough if it is not cooked long enough with moisture. Fully softened connective tissue makes the meat easy to chop and gives a tender, pleasant filling inside the crust.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

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

More meat pie recipes

Mince Filling 11Mince 10Cold 7French 7Crust 5Pastry 5 See all 92 →

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