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Preserved Meat Pie

A pie filled with tin preserved meat, onion, herbs, pepper, and salt, topped with suet or puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Preserved Meat Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the meat from the tin and break it into rough lumps with a fork.

  2. Peel and chop the onion.

  3. Place the meat in a pie dish, piling it higher in the center than at the sides.

  4. Add the onion, mixed herbs, pepper, and salt.

  5. If needed, add a little cold water.

Assemble and bake

  1. Create a border of pastry around the edge of the pie dish.

  2. Cover the pie completely with pastry.

  3. Ventilate the pie.

  4. Garnish it with pastry leaves.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) if using suet pastry, or in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) if using rough puff pastry, for 30 to 40 minutes.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Preserved meat
Forms the main body of the pie and supplies the savory flavor.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and mingles with the meat juices.
Suet or rough puff pastry
Forms a crust that bakes golden and seals in the filling.

The step that matters

Ventilate the pie. Cuts in the top crust let steam escape as the filling heats. Without them, trapped steam can lift or soften the pastry and make the juices bubble out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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