Name: BeeJ-steak Pit
Ingredients: steaks; pepper; salt; cayenne; 2 tablespoons ketchup; water; puff pastry; crust

Why it works: Pepper and ketchup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,207 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

BeeJ-steak Pit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Beat the steaks well.
Season with pepper, salt, and a little cayenne.
Add 2 tablespoons of ketchup and a little water to the dish.

Assemble and bake

Line the edges with puff pastry.
Cover the whole with a good crust.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Pepper + ketchuptop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,207 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Steaks: Provide the meat that forms the filling and gives the pie its savory base.
Puff pastry: Forms a flaky, golden crust that rises and browns in the oven.
Ketchup: Adds sweetness and acidity to the filling.

“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.