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Beef-steak Pie

A pastry-wrapped steak pie with gravy, optionally containing oysters, onions, or mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Beef-steak Pie

Why it works: Egg and oyster are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,103 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Beef-steak Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA fierce oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the beef

  1. Ensure the rump steak is fresh and trim off any coarse skin and excess fat.

  2. If the beef is tough, gently beat it with a rolling pin until tender, then cut into slices.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the beef slices in a dish lined with pastry, season with salt, pepper, and add enough water to create gravy.

  2. Cover with pastry, brushing the edges with egg or cold water to seal securely.

  3. Trim the edges and make a small slit in the center of the cover for steam to escape.

  4. Decorate the pie as desired and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

  5. For a richer pie, layer in bearded oysters and their strained liquor, or add minced onion or mushrooms.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Egg + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + oystertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Rump steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long bake in gravy.
Puff pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and bakes into flaky layers.
Egg
Brushed on the edges to seal the pastry and promote golden browning.

The step that matters

Beating the tough beef. Tougher cuts need gentle beating to break up muscle fibres before baking, so the meat softens rather than staying chewy during the long bake.

“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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