Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Beef Steak and Kidney Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Beat the steak well to make it tender.
Cut the steak into strips about 1 inch wide and 3-4 inches long.
Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate.
Dip each piece of meat into the mixture.
Roll a small piece of kidney inside each strip.
Place the rolls of meat in a pie dish without packing them too tightly.
Pour in the cold water.
Add the Bovril.
Assemble and bake
Wet the edges of the pie dish.
Cover the dish with strips of pastry.
Put on the lid.
Decorate the lid with fancy leaves cut from the pastry trimmings.
Work the edges of the pie up nicely with the back of a knife.
Brush the lid with beaten egg, avoiding the edges of the crust.
Bake for about 1 hour.
Serve
Fill the pie with hot gravy.
Serve hot, garnished with parsley.
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.
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Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Steak
- Provides the main meaty body, and beating it helps tenderise the strips.
- Ox kidney
- Adds a rich, deep flavour and a dense, savoury texture to the filling.
- Flaky pastry
- Forms a crisp, golden crust that encloses and protects the filling during baking.
- Flour
- Coats the meat, helping to thicken the cooking liquid into a gravy.
- Bovril
- Contributes concentrated savoury, meaty flavour to the cooking liquid.
The step that matters
Brush the lid with beaten egg, avoiding the edges of the crust.. Beaten egg promotes even browning and a glossy finish on the pastry. Keeping it off the edges stops the rim from sealing shut and helps the layers rise and crisp freely.
“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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