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Beefsteak Pie

A layered beefsteak pie with potatoes, butter, and gravy, topped with pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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

Prepare the filling

  1. In a pot, stew the beef steak and cracked bone in enough water to cover until the meat is half done.

  2. Line a pudding dish with a pie crust.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer the beef in the dish, seasoning with salt, pepper, and a little chopped onion.

  2. Add a layer of sliced boiled potatoes, scattering butter on top.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is full.

  4. Remove the bone.

  5. Thicken the remaining gravy with flour.

  6. Pour the gravy over the layers.

  7. Cover with a thicker pie crust, leaving a slit in the middle.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during stewing and fills the pie.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it binds and coats the layers rather than running off.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the potato layers as it melts.
Potatoes
Add body and starch to the filling, soaking up some of the gravy.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that encloses the filling on the bottom and top.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Flour must be cooked into the liquid so it thickens evenly; added raw or in lumps it leaves a pasty taste and uneven texture in the filling.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

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