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Modern Cookery

A baked beef pie with breadcrumbs, butter, gravy, herbs, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Melt a little butter in a pie dish.

Make and bake

  1. Mix the beef, bread crumbs, butter, gravy or cream, parsley, thyme, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared pie dish.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn it out and serve with brown gravy in a tureen.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the bulk of the pie and gives it its meaty body and flavour.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and help hold the mixture together with moisture and a softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking, giving the pie its firm structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, flavour and a tender texture.
Gravy or cream
Adds moisture so the pie stays juicy rather than dry.

The step that matters

Turn it out and serve. Let the pie set after baking before turning it out, since the eggs firm as the mixture cools slightly. Turning it out too early can cause it to break apart.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, butter, cream, parsley, egg, pepper):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, butter, cream, parsley, egg, 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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