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A Pie of Cold Beef Veal or Mutton

A pie made from boiled potatoes, milk, gravy, and sliced cold beef, veal, or mutton, baked with a potato paste crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Pie of Cold Beef Veal or Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Pound the boiled potatoes in a mortar.

  2. Boil the milk.

  3. Mix the boiled milk with the potatoes while hot.

  4. Beat the mixture until it becomes a light paste.

Assemble the pie

  1. Roll out the paste.

  2. Cut the paste to fit the pie dish.

  3. Slice the meat.

  4. Season the sliced meat with salt and pepper.

  5. Add the gravy to the meat.

  6. Wet the edges of the dish.

  7. Cover the meat with the paste.

Bake

  1. Bake until the paste is done.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled potatoes
Form the body of the paste, giving it bulk and a soft, pliable texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the potato paste, helping it bind smoothly.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Mix the milk into the potatoes while both are hot. Hot potato starch absorbs liquid and becomes smooth and workable. As the mixture cools it stiffens and turns crumbly, making it hard to beat into a paste and roll out.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Tomatofits less well
  4. Carrotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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