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Eeef-steak Pie

A pie of beef steak strips seasoned with flour, salt and pepper, cooked in cold water under a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Eeef-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. Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate.

  2. Cut the meat into strips and dip them into the seasoning.

  3. Roll each piece of meat with a piece of fat inside.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the meat pieces in a pie dish and fill it more than halfway with cold water.

  2. Wet the edges of the dish and lay strips of pastry around the edges.

  3. Cover the top with rolled-out pastry about ¼ inch thick.

  4. Trim the pastry around the edges of the dish.

  5. Make a hole in the pie for steam to escape and decorate with leftover pastry scraps.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Beef skirting or steak
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, moist baking.
Flour
Coats the meat lightly so the seasoning clings and the cooking liquid thickens slightly.
Flaky pastry
Forms the crust that seals in the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Make a hole in the pie for steam to escape. Liquid in the pie turns to steam as it heats. Without a vent, pressure builds under the crust and can lift or split the pastry.

“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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