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A Beef Pie

A pie of sliced roast beef layered with seasoning, topped with mashed potatoes and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A 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. Cut the cold roast beef or steak into thin slices.

  2. Layer the beef in a pie dish, sprinkling flour, pepper, and salt between layers.

  3. Add chopped tomato or finely chopped onion if available.

  4. Continue layering beef and seasoning until the dish is filled.

  5. Pour in beef gravy or beef drippings and enough water to create gravy.

Top and bake

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes, then mix in milk or cream, butter, and salt.

  2. Spread the mashed potatoes over the beef mixture as a crust, about 1 inch thick.

  3. Brush the top with beaten egg and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 25 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. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat to the mashed potato topping, improving flavor and softness.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on top helps the potato crust brown during baking.
Flour
Thickens the juices between the beef layers as they cook into gravy.
Milk or cream
Makes the mashed potato topping smooth and creamy.
Potatoes
Form the mashed crust that covers and seals the filling.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, potato, milk, butter, 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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