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Beef Pie

A savory pie with thinly sliced beef, onion, flour, pepper, salt, gravy, tomatoes, bread crumbs, and butter baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 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. Slice the beef and onion very thinly.

  2. Layer the onion in the bottom of a pie dish.

  3. Add a layer of beef, then sprinkle with flour.

  4. Continue layering beef, onion, pepper, salt, and flour until the dish is full.

  5. Pour in cold gravy; add stock or water if needed.

Top and bake

  1. Scald and peel enough tomatoes to cover the dish.

  2. Place the tomatoes on top, season with pepper and salt, and sprinkle with bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned and the meat is hot.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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
Forms the bulk of the filling and becomes tender and savoury as it cooks through.
Flour
Sprinkled between layers, it thickens the cooking juices into a rich gravy.
Cold gravy
Supplies moisture and flavour that cooks down around the meat and onion.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on top as the pie bakes.
Butter
Melts over the topping, adding fat that promotes browning and richness.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and acidity to the top layer of the pie.

The step that matters

Pour in the cold gravy and add stock or water only if needed. Adding too much liquid before baking can make the filling watery and dilute the flour-thickened juices, so the layers may not set into a cohesive filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, tomato, bread, 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.

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