Skip to main content
Main

Sea Pie

Sea Pie is a meat and vegetable pie made with salt beef, pickled pork, veal, mutton, goose or duck, onions, potatoes, suet, flour, water, consommé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine the salt beef, pickled pork, veal chops, mutton chops, goose or duck pieces, onions, and potatoes in a large bowl.

  2. Season the mixture with coarse sea salt and plenty of black pepper.

Make the paste

  1. Mix finely chopped beef suet, flour, and water to make a paste. Knead the paste well.

  2. Roll out the paste and line a large bowl with it.

Assemble and boil

  1. Layer the meat and vegetable mixture alternately in the bowl, then cover with the remaining paste.

  2. Cover the bowl with a cloth and boil for four hours.

Serve

  1. Before serving, remove the cloth, make a small hole in the top, and add a good consommé.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Melts into the paste, adding richness and keeping the pastry moist and tender.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the paste its structure and holds it together while boiling.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking juices and soften, adding body and starch to the filling.
Onions
Soften during the long boil, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the filling.
Pickled pork
Adds salty, savoury flavour and fat that enriches the meat juices.

The step that matters

Knead the paste well. Kneading develops gluten in the flour, giving the paste enough strength to hold the filling and resist tearing during the four-hour boil.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, veal, mutton, 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipes