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Meat Pie

A savory pie filled with diced beef, potatoes, and gravy, baked until browned.

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 ↓

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a tin baking dish with pastry.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the dish with diced beef and a smaller amount of diced potatoes.

  2. Season with pepper, butter, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Pour cold gravy or meat stock over the mixture.

  4. Bake until rich brown.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Potato + peppertop 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. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leftover beef
Provides the main filling and meaty flavour.
Pastry
Forms the crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Diced potatoes
Add bulk and soft starch that absorbs some of the gravy as it cooks.
Cold gravy or meat stock
Supplies moisture that cooks into the filling and keeps the meat from drying out.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top crust brown and the filling taste fuller.

The step that matters

Pour cold gravy or meat stock over the mixture. The liquid needs to cover the filling evenly so the meat and potatoes stay moist while baking. Adding it cold means it heats gradually alongside the filling rather than starting the bake already hot.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, meat. 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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