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Steak Pie

A pie made with sliced steak, onions, bread, pickled cucumber, gravy, vinegar, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Steak Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut the steak into half-inch thick pieces and beat them with a rolling pin.

  2. Season the steak with salt, pepper, and minced onions.

  3. Mix the bread with pickled cucumber and season with salt and pepper.

  4. Pack the steak and bread mixture neatly into a dish.

  5. Add some gravy and a teaspoon of vinegar.

Bake

  1. Cover with puff pastry and bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.

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

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

  2. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  3. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 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

Rump steak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and savoury during the long bake.
Bread
Soaks up gravy and juices, keeping the filling moist and binding it together.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour, helping the filling stay juicy as it cooks.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky, golden crust that seals the filling in the dish.
Pickled cucumber
Adds sharp acidity that brightens the rich beef and gravy.

The step that matters

Beating the steak. Pounding the steak breaks up its muscle fibres, which helps it become more tender during the bake. Cut pieces of even thickness so they cook through at the same rate.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, onion, bread, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, onion, bread, vinegar. 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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