Name: Beef Pie
Ingredients: Rich biscuit dough; Cold steak, pot roast, or roast, chopped; Cold boiled potatoes, chopped; Onion, finely chopped; Chopped parsley; Cold gravy

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 ↓

Beef 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.

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a baking dish with rich biscuit dough.
Layer bits of cold meat, chopped potatoes, onion, and parsley in the dish.
Repeat layers until the dish is nearly filled.
Pour cold gravy over the layers.
Cover with a crust that has a slit cut in it.
Bake until the crust is golden and cooked through.

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.

Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,855 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Biscuit + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together428 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together25,843 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Biscuit + potatotop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together137 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).