Skip to main content
Main

Beef Steak Pie with Oysters

A savory pie of beef steak and oysters baked in pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beef Steak Pie with Oysters

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 steak into pieces measuring 1.5 by 2.5 inches.

  2. Season the steak pieces with salt, pepper, cayenne, and lemon juice.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place the seasoned steak in a pie dish.

  2. Pour the oyster liquor and enough stock or gravy to cover the steak.

  3. If desired, stew the trimmings of the steak with the oyster gills for additional flavor.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover the pie with pastry and decorate with leaves.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 to 1.5 hours until golden brown.

  3. Once cooled, add the oysters and more gravy before sealing and baking again.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + anchovytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + anchovytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the main meat body, and long cooking softens its connective tissue into tender bite.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour and a soft, rich texture within the filling.
Oyster liquor
Adds concentrated sea-salt flavour and moisture to the gravy around the steak.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the seasoning and gently tenderises the steak.
Anchovy essence
Adds savoury depth, rounding out the meat and oyster flavours.

The step that matters

Adding the oysters after cooling, then baking again. Oysters toughen and turn rubbery when overcooked, so they need only enough heat to warm through during the second bake. Adding them cool and keeping the second bake brief helps them stay tender while the pastry browns.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMock Oyster SoupMock Oyster Soup21 recipesCorn FrittersCorn Fritters6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes