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A Be^steak Pie

A pie with seasoned rump steaks, butter, sliced potatoes, onions, and optional shredded oysters, baked in pastry.

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

A Be^steak Pie

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

  1. Tenderize the rump steaks with a rolling pin.

  2. Season the steaks with white pepper and coarse sea salt.

Assemble the pie

  1. Place a pastry crust in a pie dish.

  2. Add a little water.

  3. Lay the seasoned steaks in the dish.

  4. Place a lump of butter on each steak.

  5. Add sliced potatoes and onions if desired.

  6. Optionally, add shredded oysters and their liquor for extra flavor.

  7. Cover with another layer of pastry.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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. Butter + oystertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Potato + oystertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steaks
Provide the main meat, which the rolling pin step tenderizes before baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that carries flavor and keeps the meat moist as it cooks.
Sliced potatoes
Add starch and body, soaking up juices from the meat to make the filling heartier.
Sliced onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they soften and brown in the pie.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. The pastry must brown fully while the meat cooks through. Too little heat or time leaves the filling underdone, and too much can dry out the beef, so check colour and doneness together.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, potato, onion, oyster):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, onion, oyster. 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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