Name: Beefsteak Pie
Ingredients: 1 tender beefsteak, cut into pieces; 6 oysters, gills removed; beef fat; ½ pint good gravy; oyster liquor (from the oysters); 2 teaspoons ketchup; 1 tablespoon soy sauce; pie crust

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Layer pieces of beefsteak in a deep dish.
Add a layer of oysters and some beef fat.
Repeat layers until the dish is full.
Pour in the gravy, oyster liquor, ketchup, and soy sauce.
Cover with pie crust.

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.

Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Oyster + saucetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,233 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Oyster + ketchuptop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together318 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Oyster + beeftop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together798 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Beef + ketchuptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,067 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).