Name: Meat Pies, Etc.
Ingredients: equal parts sifted Graham flour; equal parts white flour; meat (chicken, turkey, wild fowl, beef, mutton, or lamb); gravy

Why it works: Flour and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,529 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Pies, Etc.

Ingredients

equal parts sifted Graham flour
equal parts white flour
meat (chicken, turkey, wild fowl, beef, mutton, or lamb)
gravy

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Boil the meat until nearly done.
Place the meat in a pie pan and pour enough gravy over it.
If needed, add boiling hot water to the filling.

Make the crust and bake

Mix equal parts of sifted Graham flour and white flour to make the paste.
Cover with the paste and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is cooked.

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.

Flour + meattop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,529 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

Graham flour and white flour: Form the paste that makes the crust, giving it structure once baked.
Meat: Provides the main filling, becoming tender and savory as it cooks.
Gravy: Moistens the meat and filling so they do not dry out in the oven.

“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.