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Beefsteak Pie

A savory pie filled with sliced beef, kidneys, and hard‑boiled eggs, topped with pastry and served with Espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beefsteak 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Layer the beef, kidneys, and hard-boiled eggs in a pie dish, alternating rows.

  3. Season each layer with salt, pepper, parsley, and chives.

  4. Pour the consomme over the layered meat and eggs.

Assemble and bake

  1. Create a border with the pastry around the top of the dish, wetting it to adhere.

  2. Cover the pie with more pastry, egg-wash the surface, and make a hole in the center.

  3. Bake for 1 hour or until golden brown.

  4. Pour Espagnole sauce into the pie before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,885 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beef + chivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together304 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Fillet of beef
Forms the main meat layers and gives the pie its savory, rich flavor.
Kidneys
Adds a deeper, more intense meaty flavor to the filling.
Hard-boiled eggs
Add richness and a firm, sliced texture between the meat layers.
Consomme
Adds moisture to the filling so the meat stays tender as it bakes.
Pastry
Forms the border and top crust that encloses the filling as it cooks.

The step that matters

Pour the consomme over the layered meat and eggs. Enough liquid must reach the filling before the crust closes, since the meat needs moisture to turn tender during the long bake and to avoid drying out.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, pepper, parsley, meat, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, pepper, parsley, meat, sauce. 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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