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Sea Pie

Sea Pie is a stew of fowl and salt beef with a butter‑flour paste, cooked slowly in a pot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the fowl and soak it in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Soak the salt beef in water if it is very salty.

  3. Make a paste with the butter and flour.

  4. Cut the paste into round pieces to fit the pot.

Assemble

  1. Grease the bottom of a round iron pot with butter.

  2. Layer the beef in the pot, seasoning with pepper and onion.

  3. Add a layer of paste.

  4. Add the fowl seasoned with pepper, onion, and salt.

  5. Top with another layer of paste.

  6. Pour in the cold water.

  7. Cover the pot tightly.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew gently for nearly 4 hours, ensuring it does not burn.

  2. Serve in a pudding dish.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the paste that wraps and separates the layers, setting firm as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat to the paste for a richer, more tender texture and greases the pot.
Fowl
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, moist stewing.
Salt beef
Contributes savory, salty flavor to the layers and the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens during the long stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently and do not let it burn. Gentle heat with the cold water in a tightly covered pot cooks the meat slowly and keeps it moist. If the heat is too high or the liquid boils off, the flour paste and bottom of the pot can scorch.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, 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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