Name: Pie Made of Cold Roast Beef
Ingredients: ½ pound cold under-done beef, cut into small pieces; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; paste for lining the pie dish; 1 onion, finely minced; flour, for dredging; water, as needed; butter, in small lumps

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 ↓

Pie Made of Cold Roast Beef

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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a deep pie dish with paste.

Assemble the pie

Layer half of the beef in the dish and season with pepper and salt.
Sprinkle minced onion and dredge flour over the beef.
Add another layer of beef, onion, and flour until the dish is full.
Pour in a little water and place lumps of butter on the top layer.
Cover with paste, leaving a hole in the center.

Bake and serve

Bake until golden brown and serve with oyster sauce.

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.

Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Beef: Provides the meat filling, which becomes tender and savory as it bakes.
Flour: Dredged over the layers to thicken the juices into a light sauce.
Butter: Melts over the top layer, adding richness and moisture to the filling.
Onion: Adds aroma and savory sweetness as it softens in the filling.

Swap the onion

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

Potatofits about as well
Chivefits about as well
Leekfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, 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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Pie Made of Cold Roast Beef