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Meat Pie

A savory pie of meat, onion, carrot, bay leaf, and celery, topped with a buttery flour crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Meat 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.

Make the filling

  1. Cut the meat into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Add the onion, carrot, bay leaf, and celery or celery salt.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Thicken the gravy with butter and flour.

  6. Stir in Worcestershire sauce if using beef.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Cut in the butter and add enough milk to make a soft dough.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the meat mixture in a pan and cover with the crust.

  2. Cut small openings in the crust for steam to escape.

  3. Ensure there is plenty of gravy with the meat.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the savory body of the filling, becoming tender during slow cooking.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crust and thickens the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the gravy and crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the crust rise and stay light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a soft, workable dough.

The step that matters

Ensure there is plenty of gravy with the meat. Gravy keeps the filling moist during baking; without enough liquid the meat can dry out and the crust may bake unevenly over a dry filling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, carrot, celery, pepper, butter, flour, sauce):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, carrot, celery, pepper, butter, flour, sauce. 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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