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Minced Beef or Shepherd’s Pie

A baked dish of browned minced beef with vegetables topped with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Minced Beef or Shepherd’s 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a skillet, cook the minced beef until browned.

  3. Add the vegetables and cook until tender.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the beef mixture to a baking dish.

  2. Spread the mashed potatoes on top.

  3. Dot with butter and bake for 30 minutes 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. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced beef
Browns in the pan to build savory flavor and forms the body of the filling.
Vegetables
Add moisture, sweetness and texture to the filling as they soften while cooking.
Mashed potatoes
Form a soft topping that browns in the oven, adding a golden crust.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the potato topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the minced beef. Cooking the beef until well browned develops deep savory flavor through the Maillard reaction. Pale, steamed meat leaves the filling tasting flat and greyish.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

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