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Beef Pie

A savory pie with roast beef, onions, gravy, mashed potatoes, and a browned crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Pie

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fry the sliced onion in beef drippings until soft.

  3. Add flour to the onions and cook until browned.

  4. Layer the beef in a pie dish and season it with salt and pepper.

  5. Add tomato slices if desired.

  6. Pour in the beef juice and gravy to nearly fill the dish, adding water or beef stock as needed.

Top and bake

  1. Mash the boiled potatoes with salt and cream or butter until light.

  2. Spread the mashed potatoes over the beef mixture, about 1.5 inches thick.

  3. Brush the top with the beaten egg.

  4. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until browned.

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

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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

Beef drippings
Fat for frying the onions, carrying flavour into the flour and gravy base.
Flour
Cooked with the onions until browned, it thickens the filling and adds toasty flavour.
Potatoes
Mashed to form a soft, fluffy layer that holds its shape over the filling.
Cream or butter
Enriches the mashed potato, adding fat for a smoother, richer texture.
Beaten egg
Brushed on top, it promotes even browning and a glossy crust.

The step that matters

Cook the onions and flour until browned. Browning the flour in the drippings develops nutty, roasted flavour and removes raw starch taste, which gives the filling its depth and helps it thicken smoothly.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, flour, pepper, potato, cream, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, flour, pepper, potato, cream, egg. 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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