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Reef-steak Pie

A savory pie with scalloped rump steak, potatoes, mutton kidney, and fat, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Reef-steak Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the rump steaks into small scallops and beat them gently with a rolling pin.

  2. Season the meat with pepper, coarse sea salt, and minced shallot.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sliced potatoes in a dish, followed by the seasoned meat, fat, and sliced mutton kidney.

  2. Fill the dish with water or broth, cover with pie crust, and seal the edges.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 2 hours.

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 + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Shallot + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during the long, slow bake.
Sliced potatoes
Form a bottom layer that absorbs meat juices and adds body to the filling.
Fat (beef or mutton)
Adds richness and moisture, helping the meat stay juicy during baking.
1 mutton kidney, sliced
Adds deep, savoury meaty flavour to the filling.
Pie crust
Seals the dish so the filling cooks gently in its own steam and liquid.

The step that matters

Beating the rump steaks gently. Beating the meat breaks up its fibres so it becomes more tender. Beating too hard can shred or toughen the surface, so use light, even strokes.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, potato, beef, mutton. 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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