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Roast Beef Pie

A pie made with sliced roast beef, biscuit dough, potatoes, gravy, butter, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Roast 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a deep dish with the rolled biscuit dough.

Layer the filling

  1. Layer some beef slices in the dish.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add a small piece of butter, a few slices of cold potatoes, and some cold gravy.

  4. Repeat layering with remaining beef, seasoning, and gravy until the dish is filled.

Bake

  1. Cover the pie with more dough, leaving a slit in the center.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Biscuit + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together137 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together841 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef or beefsteak
Forms the savory meat filling that cooks through inside the pie.
Rich biscuit dough
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Cold potatoes
Add body and starch to the filling, helping it hold together as it bakes.
Cold gravy
Adds moisture and savoriness, keeping the layered filling from drying out.

The step that matters

Leaving a slit in the top crust. The vent lets steam escape while the pie bakes. Without it, trapped steam can build pressure, making the crust lift or split and the filling soggy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, biscuit, pepper, 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.

More roast beef pie recipes

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