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Beefsteak Pie

A layered pie of beef steak, potatoes, onions, and butter, baked with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak 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. Stew the steak strips with the bone in enough water to cover them until partly cooked.

  2. Line a baking dish with pie paste.

  3. Layer the meat in the dish, seasoning with salt, pepper, and onion.

  4. Add a layer of sliced potatoes and dot with butter.

  5. Continue layering steak and potatoes until the dish is full.

Assemble and bake

  1. Thicken the broth with brown flour and pour it over the layers.

  2. Cover with a top crust, making a slit in the middle.

  3. Brush the crust with beaten egg.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump or flank steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender during stewing and forms the main body of the pie.
Sliced potatoes
Form starchy layers that absorb juices and add body to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the layers.
Brown flour
Thickens the broth so it clings to the meat and potatoes rather than running off.
Beaten egg
Brushes the top crust to promote browning and a glossy golden finish.

The step that matters

Stewing the steak until partly cooked. Flank and rump steak are lean and tough, and they need enough gentle, moist heat to soften the connective tissue. Stewing only partly cooks the meat, so it finishes tenderly in the oven rather than drying out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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