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Beef Steak Pie

A pie filled with beef steak, peas, and potatoes, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Beef Steak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the beef steak into pieces and place them in a pie dish.

  3. Cover the steak with the pie crust, sealing the edges.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

  2. Meanwhile, cook the peas and potatoes until tender.

  3. Serve the pie with peas and potatoes on the side.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beef + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,044 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
Forms the savory filling that makes up the body of the pie.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the golden top.
Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk as a tender side served with the pie.
Peas
Add sweetness and color as a tender side served with the pie.

The step that matters

Sealing the pie crust edges. A tight seal keeps steam and juices inside the pie so the filling cooks through and stays moist instead of leaking into the dish.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato. 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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