Skip to main content
Main

Beef-steak Pie

A pastry-covered pie filled with sliced rump steak, seasoned and simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Beef-steak Pie

Why it works: Egg and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beef-steak Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA fierce oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fierce oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beef

  1. Ensure the steak is fresh.

  2. Trim off any coarse skin and excess fat.

  3. If the beef is tough, gently beat it with a rolling pin until tender.

  4. Cut the beef into slices.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the slices in a dish lined with pastry.

  2. Season the slices with salt and pepper.

  3. Add enough water to create gravy.

  4. Cover with pastry.

  5. Brush the edges with egg or cold water to seal.

  6. Trim the edges.

  7. Make a small slit in the center of the cover.

  8. Decorate the pie as desired.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Finish with optional fillings

  1. Layer in oysters and their strained liquor.

  2. Add minced onion or mushrooms.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the main filling, becoming tender when gently beaten and slowly cooked in the pie.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, layered crust that encloses the beef and gravy.
Water
Mixes with the beef juices to create the gravy that moistens the filling.
Egg
Seals the pastry edges and helps the top crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Sealing the pastry edges. Sealing the edges with egg or cold water keeps the juices and steam inside the pie, so the gravy forms and the filling stays moist rather than leaking out during baking.

“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.

You might also like

Mock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes