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Sea Pie

A savory pie made with beefsteak, onion, carrot, suet crust, simmered in water and served with crust on top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beefsteak into thin slices about 2 inches square.

  2. Place the slices in a shallow stewpan and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Slice the carrot thinly and chop the onion into small pieces.

  4. Make the suet crust as directed and roll it into a round slightly smaller than the top of the stewpan.

Cook

  1. Barely cover the slices with boiling water, cover with a lid, and simmer gently.

  2. Add the carrot and onion to the meat.

  3. After simmering for 1 hour, place the crust on top of the meat.

  4. Replace the lid.

  5. Continue cooking for 1½ hours.

Serve

  1. When done, cut the crust into 4 pieces.

  2. Carefully remove them from the stewpan to a plate.

  3. Arrange the meat and vegetables neatly on a hot dish.

  4. Place the crust on 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, gentle simmering.
Suet crust
Forms a soft, steamed pastry topping that covers and seals the meat as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the cooking liquid.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and color while becoming tender in the stew.

The step that matters

Simmer the meat gently under the lid. Gentle simmering keeps the beef tender, while a hard boil toughens the muscle fibers and can break up the slices. Adding the crust only after the first hour lets the meat cook first.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, 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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