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Beefsteak Pudding or Pot-pie

A baked beef and onion pie with a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Beefsteak Pudding or Pot-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 the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut the beefsteak into pieces and season with salt and pepper.

  3. In a pan, melt butter and sauté the parboiled onions until golden.

  4. Add the beefsteak and cook until browned.

  5. Stir in the mushroom catsup and water, then simmer for a few minutes.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, sift baking powder with flour before mixing with shortening.

  2. Roll out the under-crust to about ½ inch thick and the top crust to 1 inch thick.

Bake

  1. Place the beef and onion mixture in a pie dish and cover with the top crust.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until the crust is golden brown.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Provides the meat that becomes tender and savory during simmering.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor while helping the onions brown.
Flour
Forms the structure of the crust.
Parboiled onions
Add sweetness and body to the filling as they turn golden.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savory, umami flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Browning the beef. The beef must be browned, not just heated, because browning through Maillard reactions builds the deep savory flavor of the filling. Crowding the pan steams the meat instead, leaving it grey and bland.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, mushroom, 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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