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Meat Pie

A savory pie made with bone, meat, potatoes, and gravy, baked slowly.

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

Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the gravy

  1. Cover bits of bone, gristle, and meat with water and simmer gently for a long time.

  2. Strain the gravy and thicken it with flour and butter rubbed together.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cut cold meat into small square pieces and layer it in a baking dish with parboiled potatoes.

  2. Sprinkle a little flour over the top and add enough gravy to cover the meat.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for half an hour.

  4. Add minced onion or cooked tomatoes for extra flavor if desired.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + tomatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the pie filling and carries most of the savory flavor.
Gravy
Provides moisture and richness so the filling does not dry out in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and lightly coats the top to help it set and brown.
Parboiled potatoes
Adds starchy bulk to the filling and absorbs some of the gravy as it bakes.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Flour and butter must be rubbed together smoothly before being stirred into the gravy so the flour cooks evenly without lumps. Thickened gravy sets the filling and keeps it moist.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, butter, potato, tomato):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, butter, potato, tomato. 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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Mince Filling 11Mince 10Cold 7French 7Crust 5Pastry 5 See all 92 →

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