Name: Roast Beef Pie
Ingredients: small quantity of roast beef, chopped into thin slices; biscuit dough, ½ inch thick; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; butter, a little; cold potatoes, sliced

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 ↓

Roast Beef Pie

Ingredients

small quantity of roast beef, chopped into thin slices
biscuit dough, ½ inch thick
pepper, to taste
coarse sea salt, to taste
butter, a little
cold potatoes, sliced

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble the pie

Line a deep dish with biscuit dough.
Layer chopped roast beef in the dish.
Season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and add a little butter and slices of cold potatoes.
Repeat layering until the dish is filled.
Cover the top with more biscuit dough.

Bake

Bake for about 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.

Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Biscuit + potatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together137 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef: Provides the main filling and savoury meat flavour.
Biscuit dough: Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Cold potatoes: Add body and starch to the filling, helping it hold together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat, richness and moisture to the filling.