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Beep and Ham Pastie

A savory pastry filled with stewed beef and ham, wrapped in a short pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beep and Ham Pastie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Cook the filling

  1. Fry the steak pieces with the minced onion and chopped parsley in a little dripping for 15 minutes, turning constantly to prevent burning.

  2. Pour a small quantity of stock into the pan, cover, and let the meat simmer gently for 1 hour.

  3. Set the cooked meat aside to cool.

Make and fill the pastie

  1. Mix flour and water to make a short paste.

  2. Roll the paste out to medium thickness.

  3. Cut the paste into a round the size of a meat plate.

  4. Place the cooked beef on one half of the paste and fill the spaces with coarsely-chopped ham.

  5. Season the filling with salt, pepper, and a little grated nutmeg.

  6. Fold the paste over the filling.

  7. Moisten the edges and press them together.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake the pastie in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. When nearly done, brush the top with egg white.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean steak
Provides the main meaty body of the filling, becoming tender through slow simmering.
Flour
Forms the short paste that encloses the filling and holds its shape during baking.
Ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and extra texture to the filling.
Egg white
Brushed on top, it gives the crust a glossy, browned finish.
Dripping
Fat for frying the meat, adding richness and helping it brown.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat gently. Frying with constant turning prevents scorching, and a gentle simmer in stock over an hour breaks down connective tissue so the steak becomes tender rather than tough. Boiling hard would toughen the muscle fibres.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, flour, ham, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, flour, ham, pepper, nutmeg, 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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