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Yorkshire Pie

A pie of sliced cold meat, boiled vegetables, and macaroni, baked with gravy or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Yorkshire Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and prepare the vegetables, then cut them into slices and parboil them.

  2. Slice the meat.

  3. Boil the macaroni, breaking it up, in plenty of boiling water for about 15 minutes until tender.

  4. Strain the macaroni, discarding the water.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, arrange layers of meat, vegetables, and seasoning.

  2. Add a little water or gravy.

  3. Place the macaroni on top.

  4. Reheat in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 30 minutes, covering with greased paper to prevent burning.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the bulk of the filling and provides the savoury base of the pie.
Potatoes
Add starch and body, helping the filling hold together and become soft when baked.
Macaroni
Forms the top layer, cooked until tender so it softens and bakes into a golden-topped crust.

The step that matters

Covering with greased paper. Without a cover, the top can scorch during the long, slow bake before the filling is heated through. Greased paper shields the surface while the heat gently penetrates the layers.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, turnip, carrot, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, turnip, carrot, 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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