Name: To Make a Beef- Steak Pie
Ingredients: 1 lb tender beef (rump preferred); mixed spices to taste; ½ cup gravy; ⅓ cup vinegar or water; cooked onions (optional); pickles (optional); catsup (optional); forcemeat-balls (optional); pie crust

Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make a Beef- Steak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Cut the beef into small steaks and flatten them.
Season the steaks with mixed spices.
Layer fat and lean pieces together, rolling them up or placing them flat in a pie dish.
Add gravy and vinegar or water to the dish.
Optionally, add cooked onions, pickles, catsup, or forcemeat-balls.
Seal the pie with a strip of crust around the edge and cover it with more crust.

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.

Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Beef + vinegartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,895 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).