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Cornish Pasties

A pastry filled with steak, potatoes, and onion, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cornish Pasties

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  2. Peel, wash, and parboil the potatoes, then cut them into small pieces.

  3. Peel and mince the onion.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Rub in the dripping until combined.

  3. Add cold water to form a stiff paste.

  4. Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and cut into rounds.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a portion of meat, potato, and onion on each round; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Wet the edges, press them together, and make a frill on top.

  3. Place on a greased baking tin and bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Buttock steak
Provides the meat filling, which cooks through in the oven inside the pastry.
Potatoes
Add bulk and a soft, starchy texture to the filling.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the stiff paste together and encloses the filling.
Dripping
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, making the pastry tender and short.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven to lighten the pastry.

The step that matters

Wet the edges and seal them firmly. If the edges are not moistened and pressed together well, the pastry can open in the oven and the filling can leak out during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, pepper, flour. 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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