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Shepherds' Pie

A baked dish of sliced beef topped with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Shepherds' Pie

Ingredients

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 the beef

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the sliced beef with salt and pepper and place it in an earthenware dish.

  3. In a frying pan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.

  4. Add the flour to the melted butter and stir until browned.

  5. Pour in the water, season with salt and pepper, and boil for 3 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes, then mix in the hot milk, remaining butter, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Spread the mashed potatoes over the beef and sauce in the dish.

  3. Bake for 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.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Cold beef
Forms the savory meat base of the pie.
Flour
Thickens the butter and water into a sauce once cooked briefly.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the sauce and the mashed potatoes.
Potatoes
Form the mashed topping that bakes into a golden crust.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the mashed potato topping.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour until browned. Cooking flour in butter, called a roux, removes raw starch taste and thickens the liquid evenly. Stirring keeps it from scorching, which would make the sauce bitter.

“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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