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Sea Pie

Sea Pie is a layered meat and potato dish baked in a suet and flour crust, seasoned with sea salt and black pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Layer the filling

  1. In a large bowl, layer small pieces of salt beef, pickled pork, veal chops, mutton chops, goose or duck pieces, onions, and potatoes.

  2. Season the layers with coarse sea salt and plenty of black pepper.

Make and seal the crust

  1. Make a paste by mixing chopped beef suet, flour, and water; knead well.

  2. Roll out the paste and line a large bowl with it.

  3. Cover the layered ingredients with the paste and seal it.

Boil and serve

  1. Cover the bowl with a cloth and boil for four hours.

  2. Before serving, remove the cloth, make a small hole in the top, and add a good consommé.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts into the paste as fat, keeping the crust rich and tender during the long boil.
Flour
Forms the paste's structure, giving the crust enough strength to hold the filling.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savory depth that seasons the layers as they cook.
Goose or duck
Its fat enriches the meat layers and keeps them moist during boiling.
Onions
Soften as they cook, adding sweetness that balances the salted meats.
Potatoes
Absorb juices from the meats and onions, becoming soft and savory.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste. A tight seal traps steam inside the bowl during the four-hour boil. If steam escapes, the layers can dry out or cook unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, veal, mutton, potato, pepper, flour):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, veal, mutton, potato, pepper, 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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