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Sea Pie

Sea Pie is a savory pie made with potatoes, onions, carrot, salted beef or pork, and a suet crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Sea Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and wash the potatoes, scrape the carrot, and peel the onions.

  2. Cut the meat into small pieces.

  3. Scald the meat.

  4. Cut the potatoes and onions into quarters.

  5. Chop the carrot very small.

  6. In a pan, combine the potatoes, onions, carrot, and meat.

  7. Add just enough water to cover the ingredients.

  8. Season with salt and pepper.

  9. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Make the crust

  1. Chop the suet.

  2. Mix the suet with flour, baking powder, and salt.

  3. Add cold water to form a paste.

  4. Roll out the paste to fit the pan.

  5. Place the crust on top of the filling.

Cook and serve

  1. Allow to boil for one hour.

  2. Cut the crust into ten sections.

  3. Remove the crust.

  4. Pour the stew into a large bowl.

  5. Place the crust back 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Suet
Melts into the flour paste, keeping the crust rich, tender and moist as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust paste once mixed with water and suet.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the crust rise and become light.
Potatoes
Break down during boiling, thickening the stew and adding body to the filling.
Salt beef or pork
Provides savoury meat flavour that carries through the whole stew.
Onions
Soften during boiling, adding sweetness and depth to the stew.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water to the suet and flour. Too much water makes the paste sticky and tough, while too little leaves it crumbly and hard to roll. Cold water keeps the suet solid until baking, which helps the crust stay tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, beef, carrot, 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.

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