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A Pie Op Cold Beef Veal or Mutton

A pie of cold beef, veal or mutton topped with a smooth potato paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Pie Op Cold Beef Veal or Mutton

Ingredients

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.

Make the potato paste

  1. Pound the boiled potatoes in a mortar.

  2. Boil the milk, then mix it with the potatoes while hot and beat until smooth.

  3. Roll out the potato mixture and cut it to fit the pie dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Slice the meat and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Add the gravy to the meat, wet the edges of the pie dish, and cover with the potato paste.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the paste is cooked through.

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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Form the body of the paste, giving it bulk and a soft, starchy structure once mashed.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the paste, softening it so it can be rolled and shaped.
Gravy
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour to the filling so the meat stays juicy under the paste.

The step that matters

Mix the hot milk into the potatoes and beat until smooth. Hot milk is absorbed more evenly by the potato starch, which helps the mash turn smooth rather than lumpy. Smooth, evenly hydrated paste rolls out without cracking and seals well over the filling.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, pepper. 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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