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Beefsteak Pie

A savory pie with roast beef, oysters, eggs, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Beefsteak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a short crust with the beef marrow, flour, and a little water, then form a rim around a pie dish.

Assemble

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and layer the meat and oysters in the dish with 2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced, and season with pepper and salt.

  2. Take any jelly from the meat and a little oyster liquor to make gravy with the Worcestershire sauce, adding more gravy if necessary.

  3. Pour the gravy into the pie, add an ornament on top, and glaze with egg.

Bake

  1. Bake until the crust is golden brown.

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. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + oystertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the short crust that holds the pie together.
Beef marrow
Enriches the short crust with fat, making it tender and rich.
Roast beef
Forms the main filling, providing meaty body and flavor.
Oysters
Add a briny, savory flavor to the filling.
Eggs
Set the filling and glaze the crust to a golden shine.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is golden brown. Short crust needs enough oven heat to set and brown fully; underbaked pastry stays pale and soggy, while the filling needs time to heat through.

“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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