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Beefsteak and Potato Pie

A pie of sliced potatoes layered with beefsteak and onions, covered in pastry and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Beefsteak and Potato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  2. Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate. Dip the slices of beef in the mixture and roll them up tightly.

Assemble

  1. Line the bottom of a pie dish with potato slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover with rolls of beef, and add a little onion sparingly.

  2. Repeat the layers until the dish is full, then add boiling water to fill three-quarters of the dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with pastry and bake for 2 hours at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Before serving, pour a little hot beef gravy or hot water seasoned with salt and pepper through the hole in the top.

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

Beefsteak
Provides the savoury meat filling, which becomes tender during the long, covered bake.
Potatoes
Form the layers of the filling and soften as they cook, adding body to the pie.
Flour
Coats the beef and thickens the cooking juices into a light gravy.
Onion
Adds aroma and mild sweetness to the meat and potato layers.

The step that matters

Covering and baking the full 2 hours. The beef is cooked inside a sealed pastry crust with liquid, so it needs the full long bake for its tough connective tissue to break down. Cutting the time short leaves the meat chewy and the juices underdeveloped.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, 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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